Proven Ways to Increase the Open Rate of Cold Emails

An individual who is active online or conducts a part of any aspect of one’s life, be it personal or professional gets literally hundreds, if not thousands of emails every single day. The influx of emails is so great that it becomes a chore in itself to sift through the humungous pile of mails and decide which one to open and which one to mark as spam.

Now you need to understand that in someone else’s inbox, you are one of the many outlets flooding their inbox and high chances are you are designated for spam rather than the opening of the mail. And if you are in any department like sales which relies on the customer actually opening the mail, then it is a huge headache for you to make your mail consumer-friendly and unique and alluring so that the chances of your mail being opened increases manifold. Cold emails are a hard obstacle.

As per Steli Efti of Close.io, 30% is a great open rate. But if you are hitting anything around 25% it is a commendable open rate, any lower than that, you need to put in considerable effort to get noticed.

There are three primary things about every email that should be carefully thought for to increase the opening rate of emails.

  • Subject lines
  • Timing
  • Email preview text

Now we would illustrate each one of them differently and emphasize how exactly to work it out.

1. Subject lines

Subject lines are the first thing that a prospect looks at next to your name and email address. So it is very important to make your subject line relevant and unique. There are a number of criteria that one must fulfill to make the mail catch the attention of the customer. Let us look at the best ways to improve your subject line below.

  • The Shorter the better: Unlike most things in life, subject lines need to be as short and prompt as possible rather than be long and descriptive. People usually sift through their mails on their phones, so the mails that don’t catch their attention are usually looked over so you need to catch their attention. Try writing the gist of the entire mail in a single line. Then rewrite the line using fewer words. Now continue this exercise until it is impossible to go fewer. And you have got yourself a subject line which straight and to the point, like a bullet from the barrel, rather than an arrow from the bow.
  • Do not use a sales pitch: An all caps message which essentially asks the customer to BUY NOW is exactly the kind of mail which gets tossed right to the trash. Drop the sales tone, and you would see an immediate effect in your opening percentage.
  • Tell them clearly what you want: Do not beat around the bush. Rather in the subject line tell them specifically what you want. Like if you have sent a downloadable, then tell the customer to download it and read it, or if it is a market report tell them to go through it and compare their own corresponding report. The point is, be to the point.
  • Put on blast your best benefit: Whatever according to you is the best benefit you are offering, enunciate on that and make sure to let them know how exactly it is going to help them. E.g. double your revenue in six months using our product.

2. Timing

Timing plays a key role in increasing the opening rate of your email. There have been loads of studies regarding this matter and some of them have yielded considerable results. We would look at some of the best findings. ‘

  • During early mornings, which is between 6 am and 9 am, click and open rates are at its highest.
  • The time period between 10 pm to 6 am is called the dead zone because the opening rates during this period is almost next to zero.
  • People rarely open their emails during lunch or dinner time. So you should consciously avoid these times while sending mails.

3. Email preview text

After your subject line, this is the most important part of your email. You have limited time and space to attract the attentions of your prospective clients/ consumers. This is the prime real estate of emails. So make sure to use it wisely. Here are some tips to optimize its usage.

  • Personalize your preview text. It would mean extra work for you. But it has shown to yield good results over the years.
  • Do not go straight to sell. After asking to be on point for subject line, this is confusing. But going straight to sell shows lack of personalization and people often avoid these mails.
  • Do not put administrative texts like the likes of social media engagement here.

Read Full Article Here – Proven Ways to Increase the Open Rate of Cold Emails

p538428
Login/Register access is temporary disabled