Posted by: Erin Wilson, Marketing Coordinator
Getting people to open and read a marketing email can sometimes feel like pulling particularly reluctant teeth. Although email can be highly effective as a marketing tool, the first (and arguably most challenging) step is getting your target audience to open your correspondence. A study by Salted Services discovered that “more than 50% of email recipients delete messages within two seconds of opening them” (BtoB), making it difficult to effectively communicate your message via email. However, this statistic isn’t reason enough to give up on email marketing; there are still plenty of strategies you can implement to increase your open and click-through rates.
Some of the most successful email campaigns utilize these key tactics:
Create highly targeted and segmented emails. Delivering relevant messages to your readers is vital to strong email performance. If you can identify your target audience and deliver information that is significant to them specifically, you’ll have a much higher success rate.
Deliver compelling content. Consistently creating strong content ensures that your audience will be intrigued by your emails every time they arrive, thus encouraging steadfast readership and potentially creating brand loyalty.
Write convincing subject lines. The first words the reader sees in any advertising materials are the most important: in this case, it’s the subject line. According to Econsultancy, readers need to understand what the email is offering in 5 – 8 words. What’s more, your audience needs to be interested in the content of the subject line, so be creative!
Make the display address clear. Readers are very hesitant to open emails when they don’t recognize the sender. A known source in the display address will encourage readers to open the email rather than viewing it as potential spam and deleting it off hand.
The Salted Services study also found that marketers who focus on email best practices have reported “seeing as much as 77% of recipients spending 10 seconds or more reading their messages.” (BtoB) Although it is a challenge to get readers to open emails, these tactics can increase the likelihood that your message will be read, thus increasing the reach of your brand and the efficacy of your marketing efforts.
