How do you get more of your email read?

The most basic purpose of sending an email is to get the reader to open it, read it properly, and respond to the call to action. So the first goal is simply getting it opened. Here are five ways to increase the open rate of your email:

The subject line

An appealing subject can use language consistent with the content to spark the reader’s interest. Subject lines are in fact easy to set. The core question is: in this email, what improvement does the reader get once they understand it, know it, and act on it? Use that as the way to arrive at the subject.

Personalisation

Addressing the reader by name matters, and the sender should use a personal name too. It feels far warmer.

Timing

Get the send timing right by matching your readers’ reading habits — which takes time to test. Note in particular that most people now read email on a phone. The commute in, the commute home, time spent on transport and the lunch hour are all times for reading “light” email, while the first hour of work, the hour before lunch and the hour before leaving are when readers deal with “serious” or work-related email. Take those windows and send the appropriate email into each.

Layout

A clean, attractive layout, with a seventy-thirty ratio of text to image — seventy per cent text, thirty per cent image. Concretely, we suggest one hero image and two supporting images per email, with the text limited to five paragraphs: opening, development, turn, resolution, and finally the call to action.

Body copy

Use a story rather than a flat recitation of facts. You obviously cannot tell a whole story inside a short email, so the basic arrangement is to lead the reader onto your website to read it.

Running email marketing takes thorough preparation and repeated testing before it produces the results you want. More importantly, it takes taking the first step — and our UFOSend team is glad to help you get there.