Newsletters are so important when it comes to staying in contact with your clients. Making sure you are top of their list when it comes to them referring you or using your services. And you have, what you think, is a great newsletter. You put your heart and soul into the content. But something seems amiss. Why is no one opening it? What can you do to increase your newsletter open rates?
Unfortunately, you can’t make the opening rate go gangbusters overnight. However, what you can do, is use some pretty nifty strategies which will enable you to see some pretty big growth if you apply them right.
How Do You Measure Newsletter Open Rate?
How do you measure the success of your newsletter open rate? Do you look at how many people open it? Or do you see how many people are clicking on the links? The problem is the second way is usually impacted by the first.
Do you know what your current opening rate is?
Here is a cool little formula you can use.
Email (Newsletter) open rate = no of people who open the email / no of emails sent that didn’t bounce
It’s also very helpful to know the industry standard for what you do, so you can see how well you are doing. This can help you tweak tactics to match consumer behavior in your niche. Here are the benchmark email open rates for 2019 from email marketing platform Sign-Up. 
Once you have an idea of where your newsletter stands, this means you can come up with some achievable goals for your open rates. So what tactics do you need to employ to boost your open rate? Here are some top tips!
What Can You Do To Increase Newsletter Open Rates?
Make Sure Your ‘From’ Has Personality And Pizazz
You want your email to have some schutz-pah. What does this mean?
You want it to engage your subscribers. So use an email ID that they ‘get.’ You can use your brand name if you are super well known, like Coca-Cola.
But if you are a B2B or SaaS company, set your newsletter to come from your community manager or even your CEO , this way users feel they have a closer connection with your company.
PLEASE don’t use a no-reply@brandname.com or even worse, an auto-generated ID.
Make sure you have an option that says “brand name via serviceprovider.com.” Remember to always set the reply email to an alias of the same person in the from field so you are creating familiarity.
Segment Your List
Give real value to your subscribers by making your newsletter relevant.
In my case, people on my list are interested in aspects of growing their business, through media content.
When you make your newsletter relevant to your readers (your subject line will tell them), they will be much more up for getting your content.
This study by Lyris found higher open rates were the biggest advantage of email list segmentation.
What’s not to like about that?
The key here is your newsletter doesn’t have to be sent to all subscribers.
Pay Extra Attention To Your Subject Line To Increase Newsletter Open Rates
This is OH so IMPORTANT!
The subject line is the main factor on which someone opens your email or not.
You have to elicit a specific reaction to make them want to open it.
See my previous blog on email subject lines if you want some more help with this.
Your newsletter email subject line has to entice enough curiosity from the readers so they want to access your content.
There are a number of free tools you can use which can help with this.
Check out SubjectLine.com, Mizy, TestSubject from Zurb, and CoSchedule.
Try using a word or a phrase in the subject line that identifies your brand or your newsletter.
You can also come up with teasers that will appeal and pique interest.
Be commanding and encourage urgency.
Asking a question that elicits a connection.
You can also include numbers and lists which can give the impression of clear and concise information to follow.
Be straightforward if you want to announce a product launch, sale, or event.
Make Sure They Really Want You
Don’t let your newsletter fail at the first hurdle and not even get under your client’s nose. The dreaded spam folder where emails go to die and never be found. Plus on Gmail, you now have a promotions tab, which kind of like a second-level spam filter.
Here are some ways you can bypass these dangers by confirming with users after they’ve signed up as subscribers.
Try adding instructions on how to make sure your email gets whitelisted. Get them to add your email to their contacts. Add in a double-opt-in so they want to connect again. Keep your list fresh and get rid of hard and soft bounces.
Be persistent. If they didn’t confirm or open your email the first time, a change-up in the subject line can sometimes help. This tactic works.
Tailor Your Content for Mobile
Of course, you know the majority of people these days are looking at emails on their phones.
How can you keep them engaged and make sure your newsletter is going to get checked?
First, you need to be succinct in your subject lines.
Another way is to keep formatting simple – use large fonts, one column and keep colors to a minimum.
Always check your GIFs will work on a mobile.
Use a CTA button instead of a link.
Send Consistently At The Same Time
Your brand is what gives you an identity with your audience.
And it is just as important to maintain your brand voice in your newsletter and the email you send it in.
A way to do this is by making sure your subscribers always get it at the same time each week.
Re-Engage Your Subscribers
Yes, there really is something such as email fatigue.
Your audience grows tired of your brand messaging and waves goodbye by unsubscribing.
Or, an even worse fate, you are sent to the junk folder.
You need to get proactive about engaging subscribers with your brand and content.
Try and keep your newsletter relevant at all times so you can offer extra value.
Always make sure you try a last-ditch request to retain your subscriber who is ready to opt-out. You never know your message might just touch their hearts and they will change their mind!
If you liked this post then check out my Facebook page Media Content Guru, where I post loads of great tips.
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