Big analytics companies like MarketingSherpa conduct annual surveys on what is working and what is not, including how email marketing is performing.
Waaaaayyy back in the Dark Ages of the Internet—2013 to be precise—Marketing Sherpa did a survey about email marketing. 60% of respondents said that email marketing was producing a positive ROI (Return on Investment.)
In 2015, The Relevancy Group surveyed marketing executives in the U.S. who responded that email alone drives the same amount of revenue as their social media, website, and display ads COMBINED! (Source)
In 2018, Adobe’s conducted its fourth annual Consumer Email Survey of over 1,000 white-collar workers.
They found that 20 & 30-somethings are OBSESSED with email."
In fact, workers between the ages of 25 and 34 spend 6.4 hours each day checking email, with many of them—over 33%—checking work email before they even get out of bed!
Why Your Emails Aren't Opened
If you are not seeing open rates in this range, one of the following factors is probably at play:
1) You're sending junk emails
Would you send your friends and family the same emails you send your prospects and clients?
If your emails are “useful,” resourceful, and people want to save and archive them, then you're on the right track.
If your messages are “interesting,” funny, relevant, and usually good for forwarding to the contacts of your prospects and clients, then good on ya!
If your messages are none of the above, nor are they interesting or useful … they're junk!
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- Ben Settle: Rebel, Copywriter, Introvert, Entrepreneur Shows How To Sell More By Email
- Build Your Inbound Marketing Machine With Alex Berman
- How Gmail users change their email address
- Read Minds With Your Email Marketing
2) You're sending emails with boring subject lines
If your subject line is boring, your email will not get opened, PERIOD!
Be accurate yet creative. Actually, don't be "creative." Evoke curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat, and it gets emails opened.
(Un-opened emails can't create sales, can they?)
How to write better email subject lines
- Consider using the recipient’s name or a personal detail, such as their hometown, especially if you service a specific geographic location and/or if you're traveling to or exhibiting in a certain city and want to increase attendance.
"Why are all of the sales superstars in Baton Rouge so excited?"
"Why are small business owners in Houston calling in sick Monday?"
"Joe, May I buy you a drink next Thursday?"
This simple technique can increase your open rates because people are always curious about something that involves them. - Also, test short, pithy subject lines and see how they perform.
Data has suggested that subject lines of under 15 characters maximize your open rates, while subject lines between 28-39 characters maximize your click rates.
MailChimp recommends keeping your subject lines under 50 characters.
3) You’re emailing dead accounts
To avoid SPAMMERS, people switch email addresses every few years.
In fact, according to Jay Baer (hear his interview on The Sales Podcast #15) and his team over at Convince and Convert, 17% of Americans change their email address every six months. Ouch!
SIDEBAR: 16 Email Marketing Statistics That Are Defining 2019
If your open rates are low, you could be emailing to abandoned or secondary accounts.
Consider using an alternative follow-up campaign (phone/direct mail) to get people to update their contact information and re–opt-in to your marketing to help correct this.
Disciplined email marketing pays off when you have an engaged, interested and hungry list—and you can cater to the people who really matter.
4) You email at the wrong time
When faced with a full inbox, people tend to make liberal use of the delete key.
If you send emails at busy times of the day (early morning, lunch, and late afternoon), your open rates are probably suffering.
According to CoSchedule, 10 a.m. is the best time to send emails, followed by 8 p.m. (That's not a typo. 8 to 12 p.m. is actually a good time period to send emails!)
If you want more opens and clicks, GetResponse says to send your emails on Saturday and Sunday.
Like all things in sales and marketing, you need to test what works.
Shift your email marketing patterns once in a while and measure the results.
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.
