Email Marketing: How To Improve Your Open Rates

A recent study conducted has shown that email marketing is still considered as one of the most essential tools for targeting and engaging leads and potential clients online. This study was conducted by eMarketter and it further reveals that approximately 98% of small businesses employ this tool to connect with their customers. It is important to note that email marketing is still the most effective strategy with the highest ROI (return on investment) of about 1 to 38 returns, especially for the online media.

Majority of emails sent to the clients are mainly in the form of newsletters. There is no exact formula to maximizing the open rates of such emails sent to your prospects and clients online. However, the following email marketing solutions from UM Direct company might help you develop the most successful email marketing campaign and hence increase your open rates.

1. Create a good first impression

Enticing your clients online to open you emails can prove quite difficult but you should bear in mind that most recipients check on the sender's subject line and the email's source (sender). These two aspects are key in making a good first impression to them. Try to keep your subject line to 50 characters or less, avoid flowery words like free, help and reminder, and use an intriguing subject line without misleading your customer. Also, according to a study done recently, personalizing your emails can increase your open rates by about 13%. For instance, instead of using email addresses like newsletter@mycompany.org try something with usernames like CEO or MD.

2. Be time conscious and consistent

These are two most important aspects based on common sense and experimentation. Even though timing isn't everything in email marketing, it is very important in creating the best schedule so that your customers can know when to expect your emails. For instance, emails sent to your subscribers early in the morning can get lost in the shuffle of other emails. Keeping your audience in mind based on your target market can help you determine the most appropriate time to send your emails. Also, lack of consistency in your mailing can adversely affect your email marketing open rates as it has direct impact on timing.

3. Avoid dead weights

Dead weights are those emails which end up bouncing or getting into your customers' spam folder. This makes your subscribers not to open such emails on a consistent basis. However, it is depends the type of email service used. To avoid dead weights, use an email service that allows you to get reports on clients who never open your emails. Create a more targeted campaign that can improve your open rates by pulling those clients who hardly open your emails.

4. Use a relevant database

This is usually the most important step that helps you tidy up your subscriber database. As mentioned earlier, majority of people never open emails sent to them. To improve your open rates, ensure that you create a relevant list of subscribers interested in information you are sending them consistently. Do not buy a database.

5. Simply signing up process

Complicated signing up processes can discourage new interested subscribers from becoming part of your existing subscriber database. Make it easy for new people to sign up for your newsletters by offering something like eBook or free white paper for signing up while at the same time emphasizing on the value of your newsletters.