It can be incredibly discouraging to take a look at your email analytics and find that your open rates aren’t nearly what you were anticipating. What happened? Well, it could be many things. The good news is that there are ways to improve the chances of having your marketing emails opened.

Let’s explore some of them.

1.    Create Urgency

What’s so great that prospects need to open your email now? What will they miss if they don’t? Depending on the number of emails in their inbox and how often they check your email, yours can quickly be put off to the side while they open emails that seem more important. Use disparity and urgency to keep your emails from going to the bottom of the priority pile.

Also, consider ways to make your prospects feel, well, like they’re special. Create “secret” content for segmented subscribers and use enticing talking points to show them what others are missing out on.

Here are some examples of creating urgency:
• “There are only five tickets left — buy yours today!”
• “Slots are filling up fast — reserve your space now!”
• “You’ve been selected to receive our exclusive XYZ … get your copy!”
If you do this right, you’ll immediately see a jump in your open rates. If you run into trouble finding ways to create urgency, think of the problem that your product/service solves for the customer and then create urgency around the need.

2.    Make It a “How-To”

Peek readers’ interests by hinting at a learning opportunity. We live in an information age where people and organizations are always up for a new a better way of doing something. Use this classic line to increase your clicks.

3.    Keep It Short

Not only do you want to prevent your subject lines from being cut off, but you don’t want to make your readers work too hard to digest what your email contains. It may sound lazy, but online and mobile users want information fast, easy, and simple. Long subject lines and blocks of texts are a sure way to get your email sent to the trash folder. Avoid spammy words, fillers, and unnecessary fluff-get to the point. Try to limit subject lines to around 40 characters. Try not to make emails look your like white papers.

4.     Get Creative

Find ways to elicit positive emotions from your prospects. Test out funny subject lines and messages, ones that will make them feel warm and gooey inside, or ones that will surprise them such as statistical percentages and recent news. Tread carefully with your humor style and any shocking subject lines. You don’t want to offend your prospects or turn them off with inappropriate subject lines.

5.     Show Off

If you or your brand has been recognized by the “Who’s Who’s” of your industry you should use this to your advantage. Celebrities, industry experts, and respected organizations all offer your company credibility in the eyes of prospective customers. Make them curious to see why they’ve given you their stamp of approval.

6.    Ditch the Formalities

This point includes things such as crafting messaging in the third person, addressing recipients by their last name, using impersonal intros such as “to whom it may concern” or “Sir/Madam” (which a red flag for spam). Keep it casual and light. Remember, your just a companion looking to share great information.

7.    Use Action Verbs in the Subject Line

Most people receive dozens (and some people, hundreds) of emails a day. Using action verbs offers you a way to immediately grab your prospect’s attention and stand out from the rest of their senders. For example:
• “Kickstart your new year with …”
• “Triple your profits with ABC …”
• “Step out with confidence when you …”

Grab a thesaurus and make a list of 10 to 20 action verbs that you can include in your next campaign. Get ready for excellent results!

Increasing your open rate success with email campaigns doesn’t take rock science, just a bit of trial and error. Spend time crafting different subject lines and play around with different messaging to see what works. You’ll be glad that you did.