Lee McIntyre’s Honest Marketing Blog

How to Boost Your Email Open Rate Everytime

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Every morning I receive a lot of junk mail through my letter box, and usually it all goes straight into the bin.  This morning though, one such letter caught my eye so much that I seperated it from the other junk letters and opened it right away.

In fact, I didn’t even think it was a junk letter at all!

The letter was basically a sales pitch for a credit card company, but they had used a very clever technique to ensure that I opened the letter.  On the envelope there was a clear piece of transparent plastic, and pressed up against this was what looked like a credit card.

All of a sudden the letter stops looking like a credit card sales pitch, and starts looking like an actual credit card being delivered in the post, which is certainly not the kind of thing to throw away.

I rushed to open the letter only to find that it wasn’t a credit card at all, just a very clever marketing technique. By making the envelope look like it contained an actual card it forced me to take action and open the envelope right away. 

Did I then get sucked in by the pitch and order a credit card?  No, but half the batler is getting people to open the letter and the technique proved to be incredibly effective.

I thought this was a super effective way of getting this particular letter opened, and it got me thinking about my email marketing.  People don’t like adverts, and they certainly don’t want to read advert after advert when they go online.

The credit card letter that I received worked because they did a great job of making the card look like anything but an advert, and this is a great lesson for our email marketing.

When sending an email to your list it’s the subject line that will largely influence whether or not people will open and read.  Work hard to make your email sound less like an advert, and more like it contains something of value and your response will increase as a result.

When you next send an email ask yourself whether the subject line will make others want to open right away, or whether it’s going to make people want to hit the delete button, or worse ignore it all together.

Crafting a subject line for your email can often be rather dull work, but it’s certainly time well spent. If you succeed in making your emails sound less like an ad, and more like something that must be opened now, then you’ll boost your open rate in a flash.

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