39 methods to increase your email open rates

Getting your subscribers to open your marketing emails can be a challenge. Sending out emails with bad content or at the wrong time and lead to poor open rates.

Here are 39 actionable tips to help you increase the email open rates.

1. Add the subscribers to the whitelist your sending email address
2. Scan your newsletters for SPAM related word, at DCP we use this free tool to test deliverability: Mail-Tester
3. Check periodically if your domain has been placed on a blacklist. At DCP we use the following website: MX Tool Box   
4. Use proper formatting of text content. Make sure your subject line uses proper sentence case formatting. Text content inside your HMTL should be formatted to make it easier for users to read.
5. Simply send out only the best and most awesome newsletters, this will increase your open-rate and domain/IP reputation.
6. Do not switch the "From Name" and "From Addresses". Choose these wisely before you start your marketing campaigns. 
7. Setup a correct SPF Records. SPF record is used to verify you are the sender of a newsletter/email. Use MX Tool Box to test your SPF record is set up correctly, if not then contact your web developer.
8. Avoid using free mails as your FROM address like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. You should send out newsletters/email from your domain name to build ISPs reputation.
9. Do not insert full URLs into your emails where possible, use HTML URL anchors for long-form URLs.
10. Include a text version for your HTML newsletter. Emails can be sent in HTML and plain text format. Adding both formatted correctly is a good sign that your putting effort into your email content marketing and will inbox better. Spammers tend to be sloppy and not bother with plain text HTML, ISPs will see you have both versions of email content which is a good sign that your email is not SPAM.
11. Do not use spam trigger words in your email content like "free".
12. Setup a double-opt-in email sign up process, this will ensure you bots don't SPAM your emailing database.
13. Communicate immediately with your subscribers when they sign up, make sure you sen them something awesome to keep them engaged.
14. Set a specific set of expectations, if you state "Sign up for special offers" then send out special offers and deals, not just direct selling marketing emails.
15. Use social media to generate email lists, post an offer and get users to sign up to access the deal.
16. Make sure that you send messages at the right time. Use analytics to measure the best open rates to learn when the best sending times are for your subscribers. Try to build a schedule and stick to it.
17. Try to re-engage with un-openers, send out a different email targeting un-openers with a different email and subject line.
18. Use a different style of marketing from time to time in order to switch things up
19. Use Unicode characters when you create your subject lines, check Raid Tables for a good reference point.
20. Use cheap advertising to test subject lines which have the best engagement.
21. Make a clear unsubscribe link in your HTML email content. Ensure unsubscribes are processed in real-time.
22. Create enticing pre-headers.
23. Give subscribers the ability to choose when and what types of emails they want to receive.
24. Keep your mailing lists clean and remove un-openers who are simply not ending.
25. Only send out emails which you would open yourself!
26. Experiment with different subject lines to find the best for open rates.
27. Subscribe to competitor emails and find out what they are seeing out (cheeky I know).
28. Go to YouTube and look for videos which have a lot of views and are recent, create content and subject lines based on the most popular.
29. Tease subscribers with what to expect in the next newsletter, build anticipation.
30. Keep your newsletter design content current and on-trend.
31. Segments your subscribers into lists to target newsletter campaigns for accurately.
32. Build A/B opener pots and use for split testing.
33. test personalisation of emails by including the subscriber's name.
34. Build trust with subscribers by sending out emails which they are expecting.
35. Use your website to create polls and FAQs, find the problems subscribers are facing and incorporate solutions in your email marketing campaigns.
36. Use tools like Mail-Chimp to start your email marketing, Mail-Chimp allows free email distribution for up to 2000 subscribers.
37. Migrate to Sendy and Amazon SES when your subscriber list starts to grow to over 10,000.
38. Host images on a CDN to make your emails open faster.
39. Compress images in your email newsletters for faster downloads.

Take a look at this infographic from EmaiLab for more information on how to improve email open rates.

(Click to enlarge infographic)

Blog post created by: DCP Web Design London