How To Boost Clients’ Email Open Rates To Drive More Value

As a marketing agency, you're always looking for quick wins for your clients that can lead to bigger successes down the line. And improving your clients' email open rate opens the door to the store, so to speak.

Once you get more people opening your clients' emails, it's easier to engage them with the content inside and move them along the sales funnel, and ultimately drive more conversions and revenue for their business.

In this article, we'll share proven strategies for agencies to help clients improve their email open rates–and their bottom line:

• The Latest Stats on Email Open Rates

• The Importance of Email Deliverability

• The Power of Segmentation and Personalization

• Best Practices for A/B Testing to Boost Email Open Rate

• Strategies for Improving Email Content

• The Role of Timing in Email Marketing

• How To Track Your Clients’ Email Open Rates at Scale

What Is a Good Email Open Rate?

Ideally, a good open rate should fall between the range of 17-28%, with an average open rate of 21.5%. Though this can vary depending on your client’s industry.

Average Email Open Rates

While these email benchmarks are a useful starting point, it's always worth delving deeper into your industry averages and comparing your metrics with others in your client’s field to see how you stack up. 

And providing historical background on your clients’ past email campaigns is easy with data visualization tools like this one that easily allows you to zoom in and out of time periods to show progress over time.

Easily showcase your agency’s successes and how your email campaigns tie into the bigger picture. Impress clients with stunning marketing reports with AgencyAnalytics. Start your free 14-day trial today!

Don’t Shout Into the Void–Get Those Emails Delivered 

Just like Adele’s hit song, “Hello,” you’re going to want to make sure that email recipients can actually hear you. Because even the most engaging email content and a highly targeted list won't matter if emails don't make it to their inbox. 

That's why email deliverability is crucial for improving average email open rates and achieving success with your email marketing campaign.

Deliverability can be affected by a variety of factors, including the sender's reputation, the content of the email, and the recipient's email service provider. So to improve it, you need to:

1. Build and Maintain a Good Sender Reputation

2. Use a Reputable Email Service Provider

3. Keep your Email List Clean and Up-to-Date 

4. Monitor Email Engagement Metrics

1. Build and Maintain a Good Sender Reputation

This involves sending relevant and valuable content to engaged email subscribers and avoiding practices that can negatively impact your sender’s reputation, such as using spam trigger words in your subject line or sending emails to purchased or rented lists.

People are more likely to open emails that are sent from a name they recognize and trust. So Send emails from a trustworthy name to boost your email open rates. 

2. Use a Reputable Email Service Provider

Choose an email service provider that has a good reputation for deliverability and provides tools and features to help you monitor and improve your deliverability. 

Popular email service providers like MailChimp and ConstantContact allow you to use a double opt-in system to ensure that your clients’ subscribers are actually interested in their business.

With this type of system, subscribers have to open the first email and click a confirmation link to be added to your list. Sure, you’ll likely get fewer subscribers, but you're only losing the people who didn't care that much in the first place. This is also a good way to prevent bots from joining your clients’ lists and skewing their email open rate. 

3. Keep your Email List Clean and up to Date 

Regularly remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses from your active email lists to improve your deliverability and avoid sending to email addresses that no longer exist.

Regularly cleaning your list of unengaged subscribers and bounced email addresses will help keep your reputation squeaky clean, as well as only sending to subscribers who have opted- in to hear from you. Consider implementing double opt-in at sign-up or a sunset flow to help automate this process.

– Kelsey Duarte, Email Marketing Strategist at Coalition Technologies

Just like anything else, your email list needs regular maintenance to stay neat and tidy. Go through your clients’ contact lists periodically and do the following checks:

• Fix common typos, such as example@gmal.com or seomarketer@yahoocom.

• Remove alias email addresses, like webmaster@yoursite.com or support@yoursite.com.

• Check your feedback loops. If people are reporting your messages as spam, it could damage your reputation with ISPs. Remove the complainers from your list so they can't keep sending your emails to their spam folder.

• Look at your bounces. A hard bounce means there's a permanent problem with an email address–it may be deleted or blocked. Whatever the reason, you should take it off your list right away. A soft bounce indicates a temporary problem with an email address, like a full mailbox, so it's okay to keep soft bounces on your list.

• Identify subscribers who never open your emails but don't delete them right away. Give them one more chance to re-engage with you. For instance, you could send an email offering them a discount or just ask them if they want to keep getting emails from you. If you don't hear back within a week, cut them from your active sender list. 

4. Monitor Email Engagement Metrics

Pay attention to your email open rates, click rates, and other vital email engagement metrics to identify potential deliverability issues and take corrective action. To do this in a scalable way when your agency has multiple client accounts, you’re going to need a streamlined way to keep track of it all.

The quality of your email list is far more important than the quantity. Maintaining a healthy list is important to maintain strong email deliverability. 

– Kelsey Duarte, Email Marketing Strategist at Coalition Technologies

With AgencyAnalytics, pull in all your clients’ email marketing metrics from their favorite email marketing platforms into live, interactive dashboards to glean instant insights. Easily move between your clients’ email, SEO, PPC, social, and other KPIs and stop wasting time switching between platforms. 

Tie in your email campaign efforts to the bigger picture, like with this Hubspot Dashboard. Impress clients with AgencyAnalytics reporting–it’s free for 14 days! 

Email often is about driving traffic to other brand destinations. You may promote content or products on your website or social profiles, for example. As such, having email metrics integrated into other metrics, such as your website, are hugely helpful.

– Seth Giammanco, Minds On Design Lab

The Secret to Increasing Email Open Rates: Segmentation and Personalization

Segmentation and personalization are powerful tactics that marketing agencies use to improve email open rates and drive engagement with their clients' target audiences. 

By segmenting your email list and creating targeted content that speaks to specific groups of subscribers, and then personalizing the message with their name or other relevant information, you make the email feel like a one-on-one conversation rather than a generic blast. This makes it more likely that your clients' emails will be opened and engaged with–ultimately driving better results for their business. 

Email Segmentation

Segmenting is the process of categorizing your client’s email list into smaller groups to tailor your marketing more effectively. There are several ways to divide up your list to improve your open rate. Consider segmenting by:

• Demographics such as age, gender, location, or job title can better tailor.

• Interests specific to the needs and wants of the subscriber. Consider why it is that they were interested in your client’s company in the first place.

• Behavior such as purchase history, website activity, or simply how often they opened your emails can tell you a lot about the next actions the recipients are willing to take.

• Engagement metrics such as open rates and click-through rates (CTR) identify those subscribers that are more likely to engage with your campaign.

• Customer lifecycle stage allows you to decide whether to deliver top-of-funnel or more bottom-of-funnel email campaigns to write better emails for every stage of the buyer’s journey. 

• Lead source or acquisition channel segmentation understands that how a user joined the list, such as through a specific lead magnet, social media platform, or event, can influence the email content required to convert.

The more you can segment your audience and personalize your message, the more likely you'll see an increase in conversions.

– Andrew Maff, Founder & CEO at BlueTuskr

The more data you gather about your subscribers, the easier it will be to segment your list effectively, so consider conducting some informal polls or surveys to find out more about your potential customers.

Read more about Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategies

Email Personalization

Everyone loves hearing (or reading) their own name. Personalization involves using subscriber data such as their name, location, or past behavior to tailor the email content. By using dynamic content blocks and personalization tokens, you can create a personalized experience that resonates with the recipient.

To get your subscribers' attention, talk directly to them by using their names in your emails, preferably in both the subject line and the body. You can also personalize your emails based on your subscribers' location and any other pertinent information you've gathered about them. 

The Spotify Wrapped campaign is a great example of a personalized email that uses tailored data and emotional appeal to create excitement for users. This anticipation leads to higher email open rates, and the campaign's shareability further increases brand exposure and engagement.

Best Practices for A/B Testing to Boost Email Open Rates

Since each client–and their audience–is unique, you probably won't get everything right on the first try. Split testing is a good way to learn from your mistakes and improve more quickly. By trying out two (or more) strategies at once and comparing the results, you'll get a good idea of what works with your audience and what doesn't.

You can run split tests to improve your email open rate for several elements, such as:

• Subject lines

• Sender names

• Preview text

• Sending times

Just divide your email list into two groups, send both batches of emails, and see which group you get better results from. But make sure your two testing groups are as similar as possible–your results might not be accurate if your groups have significant demographic differences.

5 Tips for A/B Testing To Improve Open Rate

1. Define clear goals before starting an A/B test and decide on the marketing metrics to measure success. To improve email open rate, you’re going to need to look at each element of your email that appears before the recipient clicks on the email or influences them to even see it.

2. Test one variable at a time to accurately measure the impact of each variable and clearly identify which specific element is driving better results. (i.e., only modify the subject line for one A/B test and then the sending time for another). If there are too many variables being tested at the same time, you won’t know which drove the performance improvement. Or, even worse, a significant boost because of one change can be undercut by underperforming variations somewhere else. 

3. Segment your email list to ensure that the A/B test is performed on a representative sample of your clients' target audience. 

4. Test with a large sample size: To ensure statistical significance, test with a large sample size, like 1000 recipients. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the results will be. If the results are not clear, be prepared to run the test again until the aggregate sample size is large enough. 

5. Use email automation tools like email marketing software for agencies to help set up and manage your A/B tests, track results, and quickly identify the winning variation. 

Strategies for Improving Email Content To Boost Open Rate

Past actions predict future actions. So ultimately, the content of your clients' emails is what will ultimately determine whether or not the email is opened and engaged with.

Let’s explore some ways to improve email open rate through your content.

It All Begins With a Great Subject Line

A subject line is to an email what a headline is to an article. It’s the first thing the reader sees, so make it engaging and compelling to entice them to open the email. Use clear and concise language that conveys the value of the email content.

A few rules of thumb for clickable subject lines to boost your email open rate:

Be sure to optimize your subject lines for mobile devices so they display fully on a mobile screen. If you’re wondering, that’s usually less than 30 characters.  

Place the Focus on the Reader

Nobody likes reading stiff, formal marketing emails. More people will open your emails if they’re fun to read, so don't focus on the fact that you're sending each email out to a lot of people–write like you're talking to your favorite subscriber. 

Here are some guidelines to help you focus on the reader: 

• Understand the target audience. Research their demographics, interests, and pain points to gain a deeper understanding of what motivates them.

• Use language that speaks to the reader's interests and preferences. Highlight products, services, or content that is specifically relevant to them.

• Address their pain points or challenges and offer solutions to those challenges, like helpful tips, advice, or solutions that demonstrate your clients' expertise and value.

• Offer valuable content that the reader can use or learn from. This can be in the form of exclusive offers, informative or educational content, or personalized recommendations based on their past behavior.

• Use a conversational tone that is engaging, as if you are speaking directly to the reader. This helps to establish a connection with the reader and makes the email feel more personal.

Deliver Great (and Unique) Content

If every email you send is too promotional or boring, people will catch on and stop opening them. Maintain a good reputation with your clients’ subscribers by sending emails they'll actually want to read. 

Here are some ways marketing agencies can provide excellent value in every email:

• Don't email just for the sake of emailing. Only email your subscribers when you have something valuable to say. Avoid sending emails that are too promotional or boring, as subscribers may catch on and stop opening them (or unsubscribe).

• Write well and use a lively tone. And proofread every email to make sure you haven't made any easily-preventable grammar or spelling mistakes. This will help to make the email more engaging and professional.

• Link to something valuable, such as a useful article or video. This will keep them engaged and interested in your clients' brand.

• Give something away. This is another way of providing added value by sending your subscribers an ebook, some case studies, a coupon code, or an invitation to a webinar. This will help to incentivize subscribers to engage with your clients' brand.

Instead of $10 off and standard coupons, change the language of the pitch to 'We've added $10 to your account'... same 10 dollar off coupon, but people are much more likely to click on it if they think that the money is already in their account. 

– Jean H. Paldan, the founder & CEO of Rare Form New Media

When it comes to writing alternative content, get creative. Infographics work great if they're short and sweet (and load quickly). You can even embed some of your top-performing social media content in there to keep things dynamic and build a community. 

Example of a Creative Email 

Warby Parker's email campaigns are another great example of creative emails that stand out from the crowd. The emails feature engaging content, such as behind-the-scenes looks at the company's design process or interviews with influencers. The emails also include clear calls-to-action that encourage readers to shop the latest collections or try on new frames.

Keep things fresh so that in the future, people will always open emails when they see they're from your client’s brand.

Always be thinking outside the box. Automated emails can be your best friend if you think outside of the basics like Welcome Series, Abandoned Cart, New Customer, etc. Try other triggers like when a customer hasn't shopped with you in a long time, or maybe when it's something they can order often, try a replenishment campaign. 

– Andrew Maff, Founder & CEO at BlueTuskr

The Role of Timing in Email Marketing

Marketing is all about timing. So there’s no denying that email open rates improve if you time it right. 

Good email timing is somewhat field-dependent, so you'll probably have to experiment to find out when and how often to email your list.  

So… What’s the Best Time To Send an Email?

According to industry data, Mondays have the highest email open rate at 22%, while Tuesdays have the highest click-through rate at 2.4%.

Source: CampaignMonitor

In general, weekdays are better than weekends, and the middle of the day is better than during the evening. And whatever you do, don't send emails in the middle of the night, or your open rate will take a nosedive. 

To ensure that your emails are reaching the recipients at your intended time, scheduled them to be delivered based on the recipient’s time zone, i.e., 2pm Local Time. Otherwise, if you want the spread the news to everyone in your list at the same time, stick to a timezone where the majority of your audience is based. 

Track Your Clients’ Email Open Rate Progress in a Scalable Way

Your email open rate success depends on a lot of factors, but luck isn't one of them. And when it comes to email marketing, one size does not fit all. By tailoring your email content to your clients' audience, your agency creates a more personalized and engaging experience that consistently drives better results for its clients.

Show how effective your email campaigns are with a white labeled email marketing reporting tool–it automatically creates and sends campaign reports to clients. 

Tie in your email marketing metrics to the bigger picture and instantly show your impact on your clients’ bottom line. Create intuitive client reports in minutes with AgencyAnalytics. Start your free 14-day trial today! 

In Summary

• Gather and analyze subscriber data: Collect data on subscribers' demographics, interests, and behavior to identify patterns and trends that can inform segmentation and personalization strategies.

• Segment the email list: Divide the email list into smaller groups based on common characteristics or behaviors.

• Create targeted content: Create email content that speaks directly to the interests and needs of each segment.

• Use personalization tokens: Incorporate subscriber data into the email content using personalization tokens.

• Test and refine: Continually test and refine your segmentation and personalization strategies to improve their effectiveness and drive better results. 

• Track your email KPIs in a scalable way to keep tabs on all your client campaigns and identifies areas for further improvement.

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