As weird as it sounds, creating an email campaign is fun to me. I love coming up with the idea, planning out the scope of the campaign with the message, cadence, and goals, and then, the best part, creating the email. Despite how easy it looks, there’s a lot that goes into creating an email and I like the challenge of making it look crisp and get to the point.
But even with the best intentions, there are times when an email you thought would go well doesn’t hit the mark. You take one look at the open rate and panic begins to set in. You then begin to wonder what went wrong and how to quickly fix it.
The good news is it’s not the end of the world, even if your stats aren’t matching up, like these metrics from Mailchimp and Constant Contact. In fact, this situation can be a great learning opportunity for your organization and how to tailor emails going forward.
If your email open rate isn’t as high as you’d like it to be, here are some possible reasons why and how you can fix it.
Subject Line
When an email open rate is low, the first thing to look at is the subject line. The biggest reason is that the copy can make or break opening the email.
Think about it: how much attention do you give the emails you receive? You’ll likely say that outside of internal work emails, only a handful deserve your attention. When over 330 billion emails are exchanged each day, it’s no wonder people don’t have patience for long, spammy, or wordy subject lines.
The best remedy is to cut down the text with the most vital information while drawing the audience’s attention by engaging curiosity, noting promos, and personalizing it. Make a note to avoid words that could mark the email as spam and hurt your email reputation (this one from HubSpot can help.)
While it’s hard not to put tons of information in a subject line, short and to the point is the goal. Remember, less is more.
Preview Text
Preview text is relatively new for emails. If you don’t know what it is, it’s the text that can appear just under or next to the subject line before opening an email. It’s meant to supplement the subject line, but it’s not safe to assume everyone can see it. The fact is that many people may not see the preview text, and depending on the email service, recipients can turn off the option to see it, so it’s not a safe bet that everyone will see it.
There’s a good chance this may not affect your email open rate, but if you think it could, it’s recommended that preview text stays under 90 characters. You can have fun with it and use it to supplement what’s in your subject line, but it’s important to remember that recipients may not see all or any of it.
Send Time and Date
Thankfully for marketers, emails do not operate on an algorithm like social media does. When an email is sent at a specific time and date, the recipient gets it at that time and date. I note this because nearly 20% of all email campaigns are opened within than hour of it being sent and up to 50% of opens happen in the first 8 hours. But depending on the time and day it’s being sent, you may be missing the mark.
Over the years, I have seen dozens of recommendations on time and day to send emails (here are some from GetResponse, HubSpot, WordStream, and SalesForce.) Some email platforms recommend when to send emails so you don’t have to figure it out at all. I personally love it when they optimize the send time based on time zones.
It doesn’t hurt to look at any of this information, and I recommend doing it because most of these platforms note that early or late send times work well. But, the best way to find out is by experimenting.
Every audience is different and the prime time for them to read an email could be vastly different than another audience. If you’re targeting a specific industry that has different hours than a typical 9-5, you may want to shift your approach to fit their schedule.
This is why I recommend testing every so often because preferences can change. One of my healthcare clients used to send emails on Tuesday mornings, but one time we tried a Sunday morning and it worked out so well that we saved it for the most important emails, which avoided overdoing the strategy but allowed them to get good results on email opens.
Email Frequency
Email frequency can be a deal-breaker with not only open rates but also unsubscribing. In a Constant Contact survey, 69% of people said they unsubscribed to emails because of receiving too many emails. That explains why 63% of businesses reduce email frequency for subscribers based on engagement.
So what’s a good balance? 33% of marketers aim for weekly emails and 26% go for multiple times a month. Depending on the industry, it may be best to do more or less than that, but the best way to find out is by starting somewhere and shifting the frequency based on trial and error.
Poor Email List
Email lists are huge when it comes to email marketing. Targeting the wrong people can make or break not just the email open rate, but other email metrics including email reputation. Trust me, you do not want to ruin your email reputation. The best-case scenario is getting labeled as spam, and the worst scenarios lead to your domain being blacklisted and your email marketing platform account getting suspended.
In my experience, and based on the results from this survey, quality always beats quantity. Smaller lists tend to get better email rates, including open rates, and lead to more conversions. It’s worth the effort to build a list organically to build trust and you can do this through opt-in forms, social media, and gated content on your website.
When All Else Fails, A/B Test
The number one way to determine what is wrong with your email marketing rates, including open rates, is through A/B testing. It doesn’t matter if it’s open rates, click-through rates (CTRs), click rates, or bounce rates. A/B tests can show you what’s working and what isn’t as long as you know how to A/B test well. That means you only test one variation at a time, such as the subject line, an image in the email, the email copy, the audience, etc. But the good news is plenty of email marketing services offer A/B testing built within their platforms.
When you A/B test emails regularly, you build a wealth of knowledge about what works for your email recipients and what doesn’t so that you can continually improve your email campaigns. At the same time, their preferences don’t always stay the same, so it doesn’t hurt to revisit A/B tests you’ve done previously when the timing makes sense. Over time, you’ll see that your email stats are improving and that your hard work paid off.
I love sharing insights like this with others, and you can get them straight to your inbox when you subscribe to the AFJ Digital blog. If you’re looking for a bit more than that, I’d love to work with you. Contact me to see how I can help with your content marketing strategy.
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