Email Response: Open Rates

It doesn't matter how great your offer is if no-one opens your email. Improving your open rate is the first step in improving response rate.

Open Rate: The percentage of people that open the email (ie. number of unique opens per 100 emails sent).

The table below shows how your open rate affects your overall response rate and the number of leads/sales you generate:

Emails	Opens		Click-Throughs		Response	Conversion
Emails delivered	Open rate	Opens	CTR	Unique Clicks	Response rate	Conversion rate	No. of Leads/Sales
10,000	20%	2,000	25%	500	5.0%	3%	15
10,000	30%	3,000	25%	750	7.5%	3%	22.5
10,000	40%	4,000	25%	1000	10.0%	3%	30
10,000	50%	5,000	25%	1250	12.5%	3%	37.5
10,000	60%	6,000	25%	1500	15.0%	3%	45
Source: EmailTools.co.uk

=> A 40% open rate generates 33% more leads/sales than a 30% open rate.

The 9 Factors That Affect Open Rate:

1. From line

- the single most important factor!

It sounds obvious, but people are more likely to open an email from a sender they recognise. But, did you know that more than 40% of recipients will delete an email without opening if it's from a company they don't recognise?

Your "From" line is the single most important factor when it comes to getting your email opened.

You should customise your "From" field for maximum recognition. Is the recipient more likely to recognise a person's name or your brand?

Once you choose a "From" field, you should keep it the same for each mailing. This creates brand recognition as your relationship develops and has a positive filtering effect on your emails (ie. recipients are less likely to delete your messages without opening it first).

2. Subject line

- generate interest/curiosity, avoid looking like spam

Other than the "From" field, the subject line is often the only other thing people see in their inbox.

Your subject line should grab attention, be enticing, appeal to your target audience, and avoid looking like spam.

Keep it short (up to 30 characters can be displayed in most email programmes), and don't try to pretend your message is about something else.

Avoid common spam filters:
"free" and "money" in the subject line may be deleted automatically (the recipients network may filter emails by these criteria to reduce spam)

Avoid looking like spam:
Don't use !!!, $$$, ALL CAPS

3. To line

Some email clients display the "To" field.

People are more likely to read a message that is specifically addressed to them and has their email address in the "To" field. This is the first step in personalising your message to increase your response rate.

In addition, having the recipients email address in the "To" field will improve deliverability.

4. List quality

- in-house v rented

Your email marketing campaign is only as good as your list. An opt-in house list will outperform any other list every time.

The age of your list also affects the quality - if you have not contacted your list for 6 months or more, many of your email addresses will no longer be valid (see "invalid emails/bounces" below).

5. Frequency

- Do your subscribers suffer from email overload?

Contact them too much & they'll unsubscribe in droves. Contact them too infrequently and they'll forget about you.

Optimal email frequency can only be determined through testing. But at least once every 2 months is recommended.

6. Timing

The time of day, day of week, & time of year (holidays) can all affect your response rate.

The best time for B2B email is during the working day, except Monday (and Friday afternoons).

80% of emails are opened between 5am and 5pm (with 62% being opened between Tuesday and Thursday), but there is little difference between emails sent in the morning or afternoon. However open rates are lower if the email is sent overnight due to the volume of overnight spam (your message is lost &/or deleted with the spam).

July & December tend to be poor months since this is traditionally when most workers take their holidays.

7. Number of text recipients

Email delivery systems can only track open rates on HTML emails. Text-only email recipients will not be counted in your open rate stats, but may, in fact, have opened your email.

8. Email client used by recipient

Many email clients now block HTML images by default (eg. Outlook 2004, Gmail) - for a full list of email client HTML capabilties, see the Email Client HTML Capability Chart.

9. Invalid emails/bounces

When you mail to an invalid email address, it will "bounce" (ie. get returned to the sender). Bounces can be "hard" (permanent error, eg. recipient unkown) or "soft" (temporary error, eg. mailbox full).

For an in-house list that is regularly mailed and cleaned you should get less than a 3% bounce rate. If the list is not regularly cleaned, bounce rates can rise to 10%-20% within 12 months. Keeping your list clean will therefore improve your overall response rate.

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