Back in 2002 people got excited about receiving Emails the same way we get excited about a new package arriving.  They weren’t coming through with high frequency and it was still new and novel.  Everything got opened.

Of course now here it is 2018 and even the best industry averages (political and charity by the way) are sub-20% average open rates.  For the guy who sells electric motors to industry it’s in the single digits.

There’s really only 2 important things that are needed to get Email open rates into the 30-40% range and that’s a dynamite title and a history of interesting and relevant content.  Let’s look at the content first.

If you’re always sending out dry, boring, facts-and-figures emails it doesn’t matter how engaged your audience is they’ll start to remember how your email content is always worthy of the digital circular filing cabinet (read – trash can).  It’s really pretty simple.  Keep the emails fun and interesting and light.  Nobody is interested in techs and specs.  Just like with any sales copy, tell stories, make jokes, prove your points with analogies.  In my boat dock business, I once sent out an Email titled “Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders.”  It was a fun (and true) story about how miserable it was to install boat docks into the water in the frigid spring water when your waders have sprung a leak.  The whole audience could identify with the problem and of course the product I was offering was a great solution.  Sometimes I just send out the newest customer photos with a link on the website to more.  If it’s a photo-worthy product this is sure to delight.  From hear on out I forbid you to send out Emails that just talk about your latest in-house promotions.

The 2nd, equally important element is the Email subject line.  It has to have an element left to the imagination that only a click through will satisfy.  For example, in the finance industry you might write “My top 3 biggest ever success stories – #2 almost wouldn’t let me share it!”  See how it promises I’ll get to view something extreme, and one of them is so extreme we almost couldn’t even know about it.  There’s some insider information that’s gonna be shared if I can just go inside that Email.  “What we learned selling $65,248 worth of iphone cases in a single day.”  Also keep it relevant with what’s going on in the news today.  “Why our team doesn’t make good Olympians” would be great during the Olympics.  Of course you have to back it up with some amazing stories inside and then tie it back into a product offering of some sort or else it’s just click bait.

Of course beyond that it’s just a matter of paying attention to which content and subject lines produce the highest open rate and then doing more of that.  Always be improving.