Would you like to increase the share of people who open your newsletters? Would you like to develop your audience’s engagement and increase your conversion rate? This article shares 5 methods that you can put directly into practice in order to increase the open rate for your newsletters.

What’s a normal open rate?

The open rate represents the percentage of recipients who open your newsletters. If people don’t open your emails, they don’t have any chance of generating sales for your company and discovering what you can do for them. The open rate is therefore an indicator to be monitored very closely, because it has a direct impact on the engagement of your audience and the conversion rate.

The problem is that our email inboxes are overflowing with newsletters, so it’s not surprising that an open rate between 15 and 25% should be considered normal, depending on your industry. If your campaigns are in this range, you are within the average, which is a good start, but it can be improved, of course ; )

At Infomaniak, we regularly have mass email campaigns with an open rate exceeding 50% and which can sometimes reach 77% or even 85%. It is therefore entirely possible to move away from the average mentioned above and increase your open rate.

5 recommendations for increasing the open rate for your mass email campaigns

1. Can your recipients immediately recognise you?

If your recipients cannot clearly identify who you are, this will make your open rate drop. When we look at our emails, the sender is the first thing we filter and so it is important not to neglect this point.

  • Can your recipients clearly identify the sender of your newsletters?
  • Does the sender of your newsletters match the identity given when signing up for your distribution list?

2. Is your subject clear, concise, and (truly) interesting?

The subject of an email is the second thing our eyes filter in order to find out if we should open an email or not. It must therefore communicate an important value proposal so your recipients think “I should open this email or set it aside for later.”

Also, keep in mind that most people check their email on a smartphone, so your subject line should not be too long. On an iPhone 7, only the first 43 characters are visible. So, opt for clear and concise titles, and focus on the value that the title of your messages communicates to your subscribers.

  • Does your newsletter subject line exceed 45 characters?
  • Is the subject of your campaign connected to a need or problem which your recipients have?
  • Does the subject of your message summarise the value it provides to your subscribers?

3. Is your content adapted to all your recipients?

We read the emails that concern us and which we understand. Therefore, it is important that your recipients feel your newsletters are relevant to them and that they have the necessary skills to understand them if you are in a technical field. If you do not respect this principle, your open rate may gradually fall, because your subscribers will delete your emails straight away, thinking that these emails do not concern them.

In order to optimise your open rate, segment your contact lists based on your content, and address your subscribers as you would a client standing in front of you, in a professional and human manner. The Infomaniak mass email tool lets you, for example, very easily target your contacts who have demonstrated an interest by clicking on the links in a previous email.

  • Does the content of your newsletter concern all your recipients?
  • Will your targeted recipients understand the content of your newsletter?

Discover how to segment your contacts using the Infomaniak mass email tool.

4. How did you make up your contact lists?

If you did not make up your contact lists yourself, it will be very difficult to achieve a good open rate, because…

  • Your recipients will not know your identity or your brand
  • Your recipients have not given you their approval to be contacted
  • Purchased contact lists contain many invalid email addresses, and your campaigns risk being interpreted as SPAM and blocked

The only way to compose a targeted, qualified prospect base is to establish a subscription form on your website that will enable people who are interested to freely sign up for your distribution list. In order to give visitors to your website a good reason to sign up for your newsletter, feel free to clearly inform them of the frequency and type of content you share in your newsletters, and to offer quality information that answers very important questions for your potential customers.

Before concluding this point, here are a few recommendations for optimising your open rate:

  • Compose your contact lists solely using double Opt-in Web forms (Find out more)
  • Regularly send newsletters to your contacts in order to naturally clean out your invalid email addresses
  • Don’t use purchased contact lists or those which you did not compose yourself using double Opt-in

5. Are your newsletters attractive on a mobile device or tablet?

Most people sort and read their email on a smartphone or tablet, and so your newsletters absolutely must be tested and optimised for these devices.

If your readers have to zoom in on your text or perform any technical manipulations to be able to read your content easily, this will not motivate them to open your future messages.

  • Are your newsletters readable on a smartphone?
  • Are your newsletters attractive and professional?

Conclusion

In order to increase the open rate for your newsletters:

  1. Make sure your recipients know the sender of your emails
  2. Make sure the subject of your newsletters is clear, concise, and truly interesting for your audience
  3. Adapt the target of your emails to your content and use segmentation for your mass email tool
  4. Compose your distribution lists using double Opt- in and regularly send newsletters to your audience
  5. Use a good mass email tool that generates newsletters adapted to mobile devices and tablets

And lastly, always keep in mind that you are writing to human beings who have needs and problems, and that the reason they signed up for your newsletter is because they think that you can provide them value with regard to your area of expertise.

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If you are looking for a reliable mass emailing tool that is very easy to use and much more attractive than MailChimp or GetResponse, you should take a look at the Infomaniak mass email tool.