With email inboxes overflowing, it’s becoming harder than ever to get people to open your emails – never mind read them.
Some studies suggest “open” rates are dropping to new lows of 10-15%.
Yikes.
Now, if this is happening to you, what can you do about it?
Sure you could always send out more emails. For that, you’ll have to increase the size of your list and that will take some time. Or, you could hone your copywriting skills at crafting subject lines that get more readers to check out what you have to say.
But there’s an easier way.
Here’s a clever 4-step strategy to increase the number of people who open your email marketing messages:
Let’s say you’re emailing a list of 1000 recipients.
Step 1: Create your email promotion and write out 3 subject lines.
Step 2: Take your best subject line and use it with your first email.
Step 3: Let’s say, 150 open email #1. Delete those 150 recipients who opened your email on the original send and re-send the email using a different subject line to the remaining 850 who didn’t open.
Step 4: Once your open results come back from the second email, delete THOSE names and do your third email send using your third subject line.
Here’s the exciting part:
You could TRIPLE the amount of people who open your email by using this strategy.
Now, you may be thinking…Isn’t this a bit sketchy – sending the same email out three times to the same list? Won’t people on my list be upset at seeing the same email three times?
The fact is…the people you are emailing who do not open the email are only seeing a subject line. And because it’s a different subject line each time, there’s nothing you’re doing that would upset them.
Think of it this way. There are many reasons an email recipient might not open your email…
They could genuinely have no interest. And if that’s the case, fine. No harm. No foul.
But think about all the other reasons someone might not open your email – reasons that have nothing to do with not being interested.
Could be your recipient is in a rush the day your first email hits his inbox and he’s just trying to address stuff he KNOWS needs attention.
Or, maybe your first subject line didn’t grab his attention.
He might be on vacation.
Perhaps your email got picked off by a spam filter.
He simply didn’t notice it.
He had more important issues to deal with and was preoccupied.
And, on and on…
It’s our job as marketers to get our solution in front of as many people as we can so our solution can make a difference in their lives. That’s what it’s all about.
So does this email marketing strategy actually work? Glad you asked.
I did my own experiment. Exactly as I have laid it out above.
The result? My first email generated a 23.6% open rate. The second pass had a 17% open rate. And the third try produced an additional 9.2% open rate.
One email with a cumulative open rate of 49.8%.
Now, will this happen every time?
Of course not. But you can be sure more people will see your email message using this strategy.
There’s only one way to find out.
