By Chris Donald

We all agree that email is an evergreen channel for marketing and marketers put their sweat and blood in creating the best email marketing campaigns. An impressive 42% of small businesses have already joined the league to scale up and promote their business through email marketing.

Usually, you measure the success of your email campaign by analyzing the open rates you get for your email. Unless your emails are being opened, the click-through rates will not increase and thus chances for conversion will be very low (because click-through rates are directly proportionate to open rates).

The email open rate varies based on the type of industry, the geographic location, type of ISPs, etc. But if your open rates are constantly below the benchmark, then it’s time that you start working on your strategy again. The first thing that you need to do is study your emails and analyze why your email campaign is not working. There could be various reasons for low email open rate. Here’s a detailed account of how you can boost your open rates for your small business.

1. Subject Lines Can Impact Your Open Rates

A subject line can make or break your email. So, always remember to focus more on drafting a good email line. The two most important things to keep in mind regarding subject lines are that the recipient should be able to figure out what is there inside the email and second it should be worth opening. Try being as specific as possible.

Statistics prove the fact that 35% of email recipients open emails purely based on subject line. Try testing your subject line. Play smart and generate curiosity in the minds of your customers by using urgency appeal in your subject lines. Something like “limited time offer” could work.

2. Your Emails Should Be Personalized

Look closely to analyze whether your emails lack a personal touch. Understand that emails that are personally designed for your subscribers have higher chances of getting acknowledged as they do not look auto-generated. Your recipients would love to read more of such emails with personalized subject lines. Therefore, introducing personalization in your emails is going to be a wise move for a small enterprise.

3. Do Not Send Emails Too Frequently

Always keep in mind that the more the number of emails, the less will be the open rate. Quality is always better than quantity. So, if your email open rates is constantly falling below average, then it is time that you sit and retrospect whether you are sending emails too frequently.

When someone first subscribes to your email list, ask their preferences regarding how frequently they would like to hear from you. Also, it is important for you to know on what days and at what time does your audience prefer receiving emails.

For example, for organizations selling IT services like email marketing, digital marketing or web development, most of the customers would be enjoying family time on weekends, therefore, it is recommended to send the email campaigns during weekdays after proper testing.

4. Get Your Sender Name Whitelisted

No one likes to pay attention to the email address or a sender name they don’t recognize. So, try sticking to one sender’s name and get whitelisted by asking your subscriber to add the email address to their address book.

5. Prune Your Email List Regularly

Maintaining your list hygiene is an integral part of any email marketing campaign that you run. If it is obvious that if the email addresses are not valid, you would not get any opens from their end. As a result, your deliverability will be greatly hampered. Hence, you should always detox your email list based on the past engagement and send emails to the active subscribers who are willing to hear from you.

When you have just started your small business, your prime focus should be to grow the email list organically rather than using borrowed or purchased lists.

6. When in Doubt, Test It Out

Every subscriber is different. Use A/B testing to test your subject lines to determine what works the best for your audience with regards to email open rates.

Just a few changes in your strategy and your email can get recognized in the recipient’s inbox. There are no hard and fast rules to increase email open rates. All you must do is work smartly, analyze your pain areas and plan accordingly. Always be aware of the latest trends that are ruling the market and you are good to go.

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