The open rate represents the percentage of users who have opened a certain campaign. Although it is shown in%, you can also see with your Email Marketing tool the exact number of openings and who were the ones who opened it.
What are open rates for?
The information provided by the open rate or open rate is great when it comes to measuring the level of conversions of our email marketing campaigns. Also, with these we can see the levels of who has opened them and how many times they were seen. In this way, we can know what we are doing well and what not.
Why is the email open rate important?
Email open rate is one of the key indicators to monitor an email marketing campaign’s success. It helps to understand which aspect of your email strategy requires improvement.
If an email open rate is low, take this as a wake-up call. Imagine an email marketing campaign as a funnel. The recipients won’t take the last and the most desired action in email marketing (usually it’s a click-through) unless they open the email and then read it to the end.
Despite its importance, the email open rate is most useful in combination with other measures of email marketing success like the click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, the number of spam complaints, and forwarded emails. This set of metrics provides a holistic view of how effective a particular email marketing campaign is.
If your email open rate is unusually low, you may have failed to catch subscriber’s attention with your subject line or haven’t defined the right time for your email.
How to Increase Email Open Rate
Verify your mailing list. Email verification helps marketers increase email deliverability and their sender reputation. With MailMonster Email Verification Tool, you’ll get to know the status of each email address on your list and receive a new list of valid emails.
Clean your mailing list. One of the reasons for the low email open rate is sending emails to the inactive subscribers. If subscribers haven’t reacted to your emails for the last 3-6 months (depending on the type of business), send a reactivation email campaign. If there is still no sign of presence, remove the inactive contacts from your list. Clean your mailing lists from the fake and inactive email addresses regularly to increase the open rate.
Segment your mailing list. Segmentation leads to more targeted, thus more relevant email marketing campaigns. Start segmenting your mailing list, bearing in mind that segmented campaigns reach 14% higher open rates comparing to non-segmented.
Use the sender’s name. Sender’s name should have credibility for the customers. Do you like emails with the sender’s name noreply@brandname.com or such? Try either a company name (GAP Factory) or a person’s name (Stevie Van Der).
Improve your subject line and preheader text. Make it funny and intriguing for your audience. A good subject line inspires people to open an email and see what’s inside. Personalize your subject line to increase the chances of opening. Below is the example of a ridiculous subject line for a New Year email.