Marketing
This 1 step is how I permanently increased my email open rates by 42.86%
Here’s the elevator pitch of my article: I increased my email open rates from 30–35% to 50–55%, or an increase of 42.86%, with just one step. I didn’t spend any extra money, much time, or take any courses to learn how. It takes about two minutes to do this. Anyone can do it.
It is always a good idea to know how to write better emails, but unless readers are actually opening your emails, the quality is a moot point.
This short article is going to get into why knowing how to increase email open rates matters, how I did it, and what the ramifications are.
Why it matters to increase email open rates
It’s not an exaggeration to say that as a business owner, your email list is your income. While a lot of my income comes from being a full-time content creator or platforms like YouTube, a solid percentage comes from my mailing list. I tell people about the cool stuff I made or do, and they buy it.
But beyond that — when I solicit feedback, when I open a conversation, when I really want to let people know about an awesome method I’ve discovered for polishing a LinkedIn profile, I use my mailing list.
My mailing list is only valuable to me and to my subscribers if they open that email. But they’ll only know about how awesome my tips, goods, and services are if they open my emails. If they don’t, I’m just shouting into the void.
I’ve worked hard to increase my email open rates because that rate corresponds directly to my livelihood. When I sold my digital course, I sold it on my email list. When I let people know about my consultations, I tell them on my email list.
Hopefully at this point, you understand why it matters that more people open your emails. Let’s get into how I do it.
You can increase your email open rates by knocking twice
Think of every person on your mailing list as a door. When you send an email, that’s you knocking.
What happens if that person isn’t home? What if they were taking a long and luxurious bubble bath and couldn’t come to the door? What if a neighbor called them for a hot gossip session right as you knocked?
Obviously, they wouldn’t come to the door.
That’s why my big secret is simple and effective: I resend my emails to those who don’t open them. I do it somewhere about 6–12 hours after I send the first (or whenever I remember). I typically change the headline of the email so it doesn’t look quite so repetitive.
In other words, I knock twice. And it works.
Here’s the photographic evidence of the knock-twice method
Here’s the control, where I did not knock twice:
And here’s one I did send twice:
You’ll see the initial email still has that open rate of about 35%, but by sending it twice, I increased the overall open rate to over 50%. The pattern has held true as I’ve grown my mailing list from 2,000 to 4,000 subscribers.
I do this by using ConvertKit, which has a very convenient method. Here’s a screen share example:
You’ll see in the video above how I:
- send the initial email
- click “resend to unopeneds”
- modify the title
- send again, though you can schedule this out for hours in advance
It actually took 24 seconds from start to finish, so less than the two minutes I promised in my elevator pitch.
What you can do when you increase your email open rates
The sky is the limit. Since increasing my email open rates, I’ve been able to:
- drive more traffic to my articles
- drive more traffic to my videos
- winnow out more subscribers who don’t really want to be there
- get more emails back from subscribers, which I love receiving
- sell more of my services and products, which is a hefty chunk of my income as a freelance writer
- get more people to look at cute pictures of my cats that I send in the emails
Depending on what you want to do with your list, I have no doubt increasing your open rates will help you do it.
At first, I felt a little spammy. Surely if my subscribers don’t want to open my emails, that’s their business, I mused to myself. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
Why would someone bother subscribing to my mailing list if they didn’t want to read what I had to say? Why should I assume they were waiting eagerly at their inboxes to receive my emails? My subscribers have lives, just like everyone else. Sometimes living gets in the way of reading emails and that’s OK. By knocking on their inboxes twice, I give them another chance to hear what I have to say.
There’s a lot of information out there on email marketing: the importance, the difficulty, the competition, the time. While I’ve been able to increase my open rates gradually by improving my headlines, building my relationships with subscribers, making promises and keeping them, I’ve found the fastest and easiest way to increase my email open rates has simply been to knock twice.
London exhibition features evolution of Santa Claus through the centuries
Only half of young people able to identify definition of climate change
Millions of people in Britain admit to making costly car mistakes
10 sustainability influencers you should be following in 2021
How to effectively use LinkedIn for business
Are streaming services killing Cinema?
-
Business4 weeks ago47% of women feel their workplace is not combatting inequality
-
Business4 weeks agoKrispy Kreme to give away free donuts on World Kindness Day
-
World3 weeks agoNearly 20,000 men have fled Ukraine to avoid being drafted
-
Business2 weeks agoThe Häagen-Dazs Rose Project announces 50 nominees
-
Travel3 weeks agoGatwick airport opens new £250m train station
-
Tech2 weeks agoX app may lose up to $75 million in advertising revenue in 2023
-
Tech2 weeks agoSocial media research threatened by new data limitations
-
Tech1 week agoHow to earn a YouTube Creator Award plaque?