If you are using email as part of your marketing mix, your open rate is important to your success. If you are not getting the results you hoped for, there are several areas to evaluate:

• Unqualified subscribers: A bad list of un-verified emails can significantly lower your open rate. A qualified and verified list of subscribers is more likely to open and engage with your email.

• Not segmenting/improperly segmenting your list: Don’t send a blanket email to everyone on your list. This limits engagement. Experian recently conducted an email market study that found that emails with a personalized subject line were 26% more likely to be opened. The study also found that click-through rates were 14% higher in personalized promotional emails.  Know your audience and form your message around what interests they have.  This is also a good opportunity to personalize your subject line.  Ex. “Marketing Pros in the SaaS industry should check this out” – if I know I have a list of marketers in the saas industry, I can formulate my subject line to show I did my research.

• Inactive subscribers: If you have a good number of inactive subscribers, this will lower your open rate significantly. Be sure to clean lists and remove email addresses when you see the contact is no longer at the company or the email bounces. Cleaning out inactive subscribers can also save a significant amount of money and valuable resources.

• Boring content: If your email looks to be boring, especially if it has a boring subject line, don’t be surprised if your open rates are low.  Subject lines that are intriguing, spark interest, ask questions, or invoke humor are going to improve your open rates more than the same old boring lines.  Take a look at your own behavior on this one, look at the emails you open and try to understand what made you click the email.

Increasing your email open rate begins by finding qualified leads and then crafting targeted messages to convert those leads. Don’t continue to waste time and valuable resources.

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