10 ways to get your subscribers to open and read your e-mail

Building an e-mail list is very important to your online business.  According to statistics, e-mail is 40 times more successful at getting your business new clients than either Facebook or Twitter.
E-mail is a powerful marketing method but getting subscribers is the easier part.  Once you have your list of subscribers, you must ensure they open and read your e-mails regularly.
Another unfortunate statistic is that only about half of your subscribers will open and/or read your e-mails.  There are many easy things you can do to help raise this number.
Below are 10 quick and easy ideas to help you get more people to open and read your e-mails.

1. Subject Line – Approximately one-third of your subscribers will open your e-mail based on subject line alone.  Your subject line should be short – about three words.  Do not use spammy words such as free, help and reminder.  Do not use exclamation points in your subject line.  Negative words draw more attention.  Using words like wrong, lose, stupid, etc. can actually cause your e-mails to be opened more often.

2. Personalization – If you can add the person’s name in the subject line, there is a greater chance it will be opened.  But be careful you do not send something like: Hello [name].  This will make your e-mail seem spammy and unprofessional.  Write your e-mails in a friend-to-friend type of style.  Don’t make your e-mails sterile and hard to understand.

3. Go Mobile – More than half of all e-mails read are now on mobile phones.  Make sure your e-mails, including the subject lines, are mobile-friendly.

4. When to Send – Tuesday is the day that more e-mails are opened and read according toExperian.  According to MailChimp, afternoon is more active with the most active e-mail reading time being between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

5. Personality — Be sure to give your e-mails a little of your personality.  Your readers want to get to know you so put yourself in your e-mails.   Add some fun, humor (do not be offensive or inappropriate) as well as games or contests.

6. What’s in it For Me? – People always want to know what is in it for them.  They don’t want to waste time trying to find a reason to read your e-mails.  Let them know how they will benefit from your e-mail in the subject line or first line of the e-mail.

7. Quality Content – The No. 1 thing people want in an e-mail is helpful, relevant information.  Provide this for them and they will probably read your e-mails regularly.  You can also provide them with rewards or benefits for taking action.

8. Capital Letters — Using all caps in the e-mail world is like rudely yelling at someone.  Do not use all caps in your subject line or e-mail.  Using all caps can also get you flagged by the spam filters.

9. Be Consistent – If you say you are going to send out e-mails weekly then be sure to follow through and send them out weekly.  If you just send an e-mail here and there you will lose readers and subscribers.  Also, make sure you deliver on what you say.  If you tell people you will be sending updates, resources, special offers, etc. then that is what you need to send.

10. More Information, Less Promotion – We all know sending out e-mails to subscribers is to promote your business.  But, you need to do that indirectly.  Make the e-mails about 90 percent information and benefits and only about 10 percent direct promoting. If you send nothing but a giant ad, your e-mails will definitely not be opened or read.

Building a responsive mailing list is not easy but there are many things you can do.  Start implementing the above ideas and research more things you can do to improve your open rate.

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By Terri Seymour