The success of any good email marketing campaign starts with a high click rate, obviously.
But the number of clicks an email gets is directly related to number of opens the same email gets.
If you sent your email to 10,000 recipients, and got a 2% open rate, that means that only 200 people opened your email. Even if your click rate is 10%, that's still only 20 clicks. However, if you had the same email generating 20% open rate.. then both of these are multiplied by 10 and you get 2000 opens, and 200 clicks.
So actually it's more correct to say that your email campaign starts at the open rate itself.
Now the question arises.. so how do you get a high open rate with your email?
Here are a few key points that attribute to this:
So the first and most important criteria to get high open rates is the quality of your list. A good list of 10,000 active users is far more better, and more valuable, and more stable to your campaigns, than a list of 100,000 users that consists of 90% dead or unused email addresses and only 10% active addresses, and its not just the open rates that are affected by these numbers.
You must understand that over time, dead or unused email addresses are converted into spamtraps, it is a practice many email providers use in order to filter our spam. Your emails landing in spamtraps lead to your further emails getting filtered, so in a sense if you send to a list of 100,000 users that contains only 10% active users, 90% unused addresses - even if only 10 addresses of these 90% unused addresses are spamtraps - that will directly impact your ability to reach the 10% real users you have.
So the correct way to achieve this is to actually monitor your email opens - see which recipients open your emails constantly and keep only them in your list. A smaller, higher quality list, leads to better open rates and far more consistent email deliveries.
But the number of clicks an email gets is directly related to number of opens the same email gets.
If you sent your email to 10,000 recipients, and got a 2% open rate, that means that only 200 people opened your email. Even if your click rate is 10%, that's still only 20 clicks. However, if you had the same email generating 20% open rate.. then both of these are multiplied by 10 and you get 2000 opens, and 200 clicks.
So actually it's more correct to say that your email campaign starts at the open rate itself.
Now the question arises.. so how do you get a high open rate with your email?
Here are a few key points that attribute to this:
1. The quality of your list
If those 10,000 recipients you sent your email to are mostly unused email addresses, or dead email addresses, or addresses that people don't use anymore (because they've switched to other providers and now their old email is obsolete) then it makes sense that your open rates will be impacted from this.So the first and most important criteria to get high open rates is the quality of your list. A good list of 10,000 active users is far more better, and more valuable, and more stable to your campaigns, than a list of 100,000 users that consists of 90% dead or unused email addresses and only 10% active addresses, and its not just the open rates that are affected by these numbers.
You must understand that over time, dead or unused email addresses are converted into spamtraps, it is a practice many email providers use in order to filter our spam. Your emails landing in spamtraps lead to your further emails getting filtered, so in a sense if you send to a list of 100,000 users that contains only 10% active users, 90% unused addresses - even if only 10 addresses of these 90% unused addresses are spamtraps - that will directly impact your ability to reach the 10% real users you have.
So the correct way to achieve this is to actually monitor your email opens - see which recipients open your emails constantly and keep only them in your list. A smaller, higher quality list, leads to better open rates and far more consistent email deliveries.
2. The sender's name and subject line
When your emails first arrive at the inbox (or spam folder) of the user, the only thing they see is your sender's name and the subject line (sometimes even the subject line isn't fully shown as some email clients have a smaller screen that trims it..).
It makes sense that both the sender name and the subject line will determine alot on whether the recipient will open your email, delete it without even opening, or mark it as spam.
If you have a spam folder in your own email address, try to check it sometimes - andpay special attention to spam emails. If you do this you'll see that a classical spam email usually uses a personal name of someone you never heard of, contains subject line that appears to be a response "Re: xxxxx" or something urgent "URGENT!!" , and its content contains text that doesnt realy add any value to you.
If you do not want your mails to be immediately marked as spam, as a rule of thumb - make your best to avoid being perceived as a spammer. DON'T use personal names as your sender's name unless they already know you or tried contacting you first. And obviously don't use blank, misleading, or nonsense subject lines - when people can't determine what your email is about by looking first at your sender name and the subject line, they will immediately delete your message or even worse - mark it as spam, which will hurt your reputation.
Make sure that people can immediately understand what your email is about by looking at the sender name and subject line. This step is critically important. You will be surprised to know that when your emails does provide some added value to people - even if your email appears to be "spam", alot of people will actually de-flag you and mark your mails as not-spam and by this improve your reputation.
That's the next point ...
3. The content of the message itself
How does the content of the message affects your open rates?
Well, since the only way to realy track opens is by using downloadable images inside of the mail itself, it means that people who open your email and don't download images by default won't be counted.
There are many mailbox providers who block images by default to protect their users' privacy.
When images aren't shown, that leaves just the plain html or text to read, which is why including text inside your email and not only images is a good practice.
So when they look at your email and realize that your email is interesting, or gives them an added value, then they use the "show images" button which then downloads your images, and adds more opens to you. In addition, it also flags to the mailbox provider that your email is "relevant" or provides value, which also in turn improves your sender's reputation.
In today's email world, relevancy and value play a higher role in email marketing than ever before. It's not only just in email, but also in search engines. The days where spammers could abuse a mail system or a search engine for their own benefits using blackhat strategies are gone.
BUT - if your mail provides value to the recipients, if your mail is relevant to them, and if it looks good, they will tell their mailbox providers that your mail is "relevant" and good by flagging your emails accordingly. So be relevant, add value to your users. That's the way to go.
