At OptinMonster<\/a>, we’re experts on all things related to email marketing. After all, we offer the world’s most powerful lead generation software, specializing in helping businesses build great email lists with targeted website popups.<\/p>\n In this article, we’ll share our top tips for getting more people to open your email newsletters, product promotions, and other email campaigns. You’ll learn how to optimize your email marketing strategy and get more eyes on your email messages.<\/p>\n Let’s get started.<\/p>\n Before you start your efforts to improve open rates, you’ll want to closely examine your current open rates. This may lead you to wonder:<\/p>\n What is a good open rate for email? <\/a><\/p>\n The average open rate for email marketing in 2023 ranges from 18%-44%<\/a>, depending on the industry.<\/p>\n Maybe you’re still trying to reach the average email open rate. Or perhaps you’ve already reached that benchmark but want to do even better! Either way, you can use the following strategies to increase the number of people who read your emails.<\/p>\n 47% of users decide whether to open an email<\/a> based on the subject line alone.<\/p>\n When it comes to email open rates, your subject lines are critical. Just think about how you check your own inbox.<\/p>\n If you get a lot of marketing emails, you scan through the subject lines to decide which ones are worth the effort of opening and reading.<\/p>\n But how do you make your subject lines stand out? Here are a few tips for crafting creative subject lines:<\/p>\n Here are a couple of smart subject lines that use some of these strategies:<\/p>\n The subject line from Jimmy John’s<\/a> is the perfect use of an emoji since the email is about the restaurant’s tasty cookies. It also explicitly addresses a specific need and has a conversational tone.<\/p>\n Land’s End<\/a>‘s subject line is short and simple, but it does the job. In just 4 words, it leverages FOMO, curiosity, and urgency.<\/p>\n Focusing on your subject lines can transform your email marketing success. DigitalMarketer.com<\/a>, one of our clients, increased their open rates 3x<\/a><\/strong> by improving their subject lines.<\/p>\n Case Study<\/b> See how Digital Marketer increased sales\u00a0using OptinMonster<\/a>!<\/p>\n When In Doubt, A\/B Test It<\/strong><\/p>\n No single subject line strategy will be right for everyone. Each brand has its own voice, style, and goals, and every subscriber list is unique.<\/p>\n That’s where A\/B testing<\/a>, also known as split testing, comes in. The email service provider (ESP)<\/a> that you use for your email marketing most likely offers this kind of testing.<\/p>\n Basically, you can test 2 different subject lines for the same email campaign. Your ESP will send your campaign out to a small percentage of your list, with half of those subscribers seeing each of the 2 subject line variations.<\/p>\n Your ESP will monitor which subject line gets the best open rate and then will use that subject line for the full email campaign.<\/p>\n Want to explore subject lines more in-depth? We’ve got you covered. Here are 2 great resources:<\/p>\n In addition to the subject line, there’s one other thing subscribers see when deciding which emails to open:<\/p>\n Your sender name.<\/p>\n In fact, 42% of users say the sender name<\/a> is what they look at first when browsing their inbox.<\/p>\n Usually, the sender’s name is simply the name of your company or website. But you can catch extra attention if you switch things up.<\/p>\n For instance, most of our marketing emails for OptinMonster come from “Angie at OptinMonster.”<\/p>\n Angie is OptinMonster’s General Manager. We use a personal and friendly tone in our email marketing, so having our emails come from her name adds to that brand voice.<\/p>\n One case study showed that using the name of a real person can improve open rates by 50%!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Again, this strategy might not be right for everyone. But if you want to give it a try, here are some ideas:<\/p>\n As with your subject line, you can always run a split test to find out which sender names your subscribers respond best to.<\/p>\n Do your subscribers still want to hear from you?<\/p>\n You’ve probably heard the advice that it’s important to email your subscribers on a consistent basis so your list doesn’t go stale.<\/p>\n But even so, over time, email subscribers can still go stale. Some people may have changed email accounts, or maybe they just aren’t interested in your brand anymore. Or if you’re a brick-and-mortar business, some subscribers will inevitably move to other areas.<\/p>\n So to keep your list fresh and filled with engaged subscribers, it’s a good idea to periodically remove inactive subscribers. An inactive subscriber could be anyone who has not engaged with any email in the past 6 months or more.<\/p>\n It may feel sad to see your subscriber count go down. However, if a large percentage of your list never engages with your marketing campaign, then you have a false measurement of your actual audience. And you’ll have an artificially low open rate metric.<\/p>\n But before you delete them from your list, try sending a win-back email campaign<\/a> to re-engage your inactive subscribers.<\/p>\n Here’s an example of a re-engagement email from the Mayo Clinic<\/a>:<\/p>\n The subject line for this email was “We miss you! Enjoy this complimentary special report.” This subject line reminds subscribers that they haven’t opened your emails in a while. And most importantly, it offers an incentive to re-engage.<\/p>\n You can also occasionally ask subscribers if they want to update their information and their preferences. This way, they are reminded that they can take control of how they want to engage with you.<\/p>\n If you are trying to revive a cold list, try conducting a survey. In exchange for answering your questions, they get a free gift, such as a $5 gift card.<\/p>\n This kills two birds with one stone. First, it incentivizes them to engage with you. It also provides you with the information you need to continue to engage them with content<\/a> they will love.<\/p>\n For more, check out this post: <\/strong>Email Scrubbing: Why and How to Clean Your Email List (Step-by-Step)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n When people decide whether or not to open an email, one of the most important factors is whether or not they think the email is relevant to them<\/em>.<\/p>\n The best way to increase the relevancy of your emails? By segmenting your email list<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your list can be segmented by a wide range of data points, including:<\/p>\n Instead of sending every message to your entire list, you can target your email marketing to get the right messages to the right people.<\/p>\n In this case study<\/a>, the entertainment company Skybound<\/a> used segmentation to reach open rates as high as 80%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You can start by adding tags to your subscribers based on behavior, such as purchase behavior. So when someone becomes a paying customer, you send them different types of emails than you would send to someone who has not purchased anything yet.<\/p>\n But how can you get started segmenting your list?<\/b><\/p>\n The easiest way to segment your list is to use OptinMonster<\/strong> for your on-site email signups.<\/p>\n\n
How to Improve Email Open Rates (10 Proven Tips)<\/h2>\n
1. Make Your Subject Lines Stand Out (for Up to 3X the Open Rate)<\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/optinmonster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/email-inbox-for-open-rate.png\")
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![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/optinmonster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/mobile-inbox-promotional-email-subject-lines.png\")
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2. Experiment With Your Sender Name (Improve Open Rates by 50%!)<\/h3>\n
![\"Marketing](\"https:\/\/optinmonster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/sender-name-for-email-open-rate.png\")
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3. Keep Your List Fresh (Delete Inactive Subscribers)<\/h3>\n
![\"Email](\"https:\/\/optinmonster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/mayo-clinic-open-rate-reengagement-email.jpg\")
<\/p>\n4. Segment Your List to Send More Relevant Emails<\/h3>\n
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