If you are here reading the following article, it is pretty obvious that you are looking for that one way that will take all your worries away when it comes to getting that right ‘Marketing email” opened up by all.

Marketing Email or Email Marketing, to put it in the simplest of terms is sending out an email to all those users out there who to you may seem like potential customers who may be interested in your product or service that you have to offer. And here the better the email and the message in it, the better the response and the better the conversion rate.

And since you are already here reading the following article on ‘how to’ instead of ‘what is’, I believe it is safe to assume that you more or less have the basic idea about what Email Marketing actually is or how it will help your business and a few other basics here and there. Thus, for this reason, I will not stick to the basics which you already might know and straight away head to “How to make sure that your marketing email actually gets opened by your end-users and not just go ignored?”

Now, the very first thing you need to understand when it comes to dealing with Email Marketing is the concept of ‘open rate’ and how having an understanding of it can help you carry out successful email campaigns that take you and your business a long way.

So what exactly is an ‘open rate’ with respect to email campaigns and email marketing?

In the simplest of terms an open rate is nothing else but the ratio between the number of emails actually opened and read by the end-user against the total number of emails being sent by you to all your end users or potential customers.

For example: Suppose you have sent an email describing your new service or product to around 100 end users or potential customers out there. Now, it so happens that in most cases out of the 100 emails you have sent, there is a high possibility that at least 10 to 20 of the sent emails may not reach your desired end-user at all and bounce back. This may happen due to a number of reasons like an incorrect email ID, or an old or deleted email ID, or simply a poor internet connection.

So, if you consider the number of bounced back emails to be 10, then let us assume that at least 80 of the emails you sent might have ended up in your end user’s mailbox. And out of these 80 emails, only 10 of them are actually opened and viewed by your end-user. Here, then the open rate would simply be calculated as 10: 80, and the percentage of open rate would be given as 12.5%.

Hence, here the bottom line is, that you must try your level best to increase the open rate of your email campaigns as high as possible. The more, the better and more successful your email marketing campaigns.

And how you go on doing it, mainly depends upon five primary things or tasks you need to implement correctly and are as shown below:

What not to do!

Before you do anything at all, it is very important that you know and understands what not to do and what mistakes can be avoided. Having an idea of not doing it incorrectly is equally important as doing it correctly. Hence, there are a few things which you must keep in mind before sending any kind of email to your clients as a set of first-hand rules, be it any day anyone.

• Never use all Uppercase characters in your heading or subject line – Now, presenting your subject line to your clients in all Uppercase letters may seem very compelling to attract your end users attention. Right? However, that is not always the case. Atleast, for most email service providers it is actually the other way around. When you try to do something which goes the opposite to ‘conventional’, bots and parameters set in such email service providers don’t much understand your intent and may just send your email to your user’s junk files or spam files at the most.
• Don’t use words like “FREE”, “DEAL”, “ONE IN A LIFETIME”, “GUARANTEED” and so on – These sound very much like street vendors trying to sell their products and services cheap and just a single time thing. If you have trust in your product and service, then there is no need at all, trying to sound so desperate. Be formal, be straight and prove your point right.
• Not more than two attachments – The aim basically is to make your email as short and as presentable as it can be. Obviously, no one is interested in reading long emails. Right? You have to make it quick and you have to do it right. Hence, do some research on how to prove your point to your potential customers in the fewest of lines possible. And once they are hooked to what you have to say, you can present the rest of your pitch over an attachment, be it in the form of a pdf file, word file or link to your new service or product.

What to do!

I believe the earlier section on “What not to do!” pretty much sums up what to actually avoid and what to actually do. However, how to do it is shown over the points mentioned below:

Categorieze your email list

It is very important that you know your customers well. And depending upon what you think your customer or end-user might be interested in, categories them accordingly. This way there is always less chance that your customers will ever get annoyed by the content you are sending them through email. As long as a message suits their taste, the email is sure to be opened and marked important. And hence, categories both your email list as well as your content accordingly so that it hits the maximum open rate.

Include a call to action function

Well, if your end-user likes your content, then there is a high chance that a ‘call to action button’ will be clicked on. This not only helps you further explain your service and product but also gives your end-user a better understanding of your brand and business as a whole for a longer duration of time.

A strong subject line is the key

When I say a strong and catchy ‘subject line’, it does not mean some shady looking all-CAPS sentence at all, but rather a decent, straight-forward, and formal approach. Your subject line should be such that it defines your purpose and does not irritate the reader in any way. A subject line is basically the hook of your fishing rod. The more concise and to small the treat is, the better the chances the fish will get caught up on the hook without nibbling it from the side.