Ever wonder why you aren’t seeing a huge open rate on some of your latest email marketing campaigns? Well, there could be several things causing this. You never want open rates to be low, but that is a lot easier to fix than click- through rates being low. Why you ask? Well, it’s simple; you lost them at hello. There are only so many things that could have gone wrong for them to not have even opened the email. Check over these few things before sending your next campaign and see if your open rate increases.
Your Email Bounced
Double and triple check your email addresses when you add them to your list! A simple mistake like forgetting a period before the .com, .edu, or whichever it may be can prevent your email from getting to your reader. A soft bounce or an offline bounce, could have occurred where the sever is temporarily or permanently unavailable. A hard bounce is when the recipient’s serve plain out rejects the email. Reasons for that type of bounce is the account or domain does not exist.
Filters Picked Up Your Email as Spam
People won’t be able to read your email if spam keeps blocking it. There are a few common reasons why this could be. Your email HTML has a low ratio of text to image area. The message only has text/html MIME parts. Your HTML and text are different parts. Your subject line is ALL CAPITALS. If there are too may images and not enough readable text, spam filters can’t read images so they assume the worst and send your email to spam.
Your Subject Line Wasn’t Interesting Enough
This goes hand in hand with the reason above. When you use words like: free, help, percent off, and reminder spam filters pick them up. You want to summarize what is in your email in one catchy line phrase. Try not to sound like a used salesman, because chances are that the more you sound like one the more spam filters will pick up your email.
You Were Lost in Their Inbox
This has everything to do with when you send your email. You know what industry you are in and roughly how full the people receiving your email’s inboxes will be. Find a time that works best for your industry. Ever industry is different, so there is no set perfect time to send an email. Use test segments and track their open rates to find out what day and what time is best for your subscribers. Keep in mind long weekends and national holidays where they might not be around their computer.
You Forgot About The Preview
Every email has two lines that you are able to view without ever opening the email. This could be a specific two lines that you type in as the preview or the first two lines of your email. Regardless of which it is, it is a huge reason as to why someone may or may not open your email. Only three things can be seen by someone before they open your email: who it is from, the subject line, and the two line description. You want to make it interesting enough to where people will want to read more, but not tell them everything so they have to open the email for more information.