Improving e-mail open rates

The fact is that one of the most efficient, inexpensive ways to communicate with your clients (or members in the case of associations) is with e-mail. The benefits are great and many: 1) it’s timely (delivery is usually within minutes), 2) is cheap (no stamps), and 3) is easily customizable (you can address it to the person, and have content that is important to that person). But we continue to see low open e-mail open rates, why?

Lewis and Anne Mitchell, CEO-president of the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy and author of “The Email Deliverability Handbook” explain some of the top reasons e-mail goes undelivered and what you can do to overcome your own deliverability challenges. Some of the ones I like (along with my comments) are:

Your content isn’t compelling enough. If the recipients are not interested in what you have to say, they are not going to open your e-mails. As well, ISP’s may see low click rates on your e-mails and consider your e-mails spam!
You’re touching your list too often. This is a reason I unsubscribe to many newsletter or e-mails. If I get an e-mail once or more a week, I’ll usually unsubscribe. I expect to be educated, and so do your clients (see point #1)
You’re not cleaning your lists. This is important, how many of you have used fake e-mail addresses to get that free report! So do your clients, so make sure right after you send out an e-mail campaign, you remove all the bounced e-mail addresses.
You’re not viewing campaign results in real time. I think this is very important. I want to know what my open rate is and which articles are the most popular. This way I can ensure future issues have a higher acceptance rate because I know what articles my subscribers want to see.

Jeff Russell