If you’re not getting people to open your emails then your efforts of content writing are absolutely pointless and you’re wasting energy! Email marketing is CRITICAL to long term business success and security, and the efficacy of converting clients from your list is more powerful than ever.
In this punchy episode, I’m revealing two ingredients that will significantly increase your open rates!
Listen to the episode on the player above or read the blog below:
Two Ingredients for Incredible Email Open Rates
Anyone who tells you that email marketing is dead is lying to you. Email marketing is a core way that we make money in business. It is something that people still use and is very valuable. I believe it is more valuable than social media. People are paying more attention to email than social media.
We are more considered in our habits when it comes to email. Email is still very much a part of our lives. When you want to get hold of someone, email is the way to do it. If something is not in my inbox, then it is at risk of getting missed. Facebook and other social media notifications often get lost. Email is still critical to business. People still pay attention to email.
This is something we focus on in my Elevate programme. We focus on building a list. Recently, a client had their Facebook hacked into and lost every single contact on there. Do not put all your eggs into one basket. Your email list is the only thing you have control over. Putting your contacts on social media platforms is very risky. You do not own it and your access can be blocked at any point.
I had an issue where I had changed my password on LinkedIn a few times and it blocked me. I could not get access to my LinkedIn. While it’s great when these platforms are workings, you do not have control over your access. Email gives you that control. It is extremely effective for sales.
Subject lines
Subject headers are important. If you do not get this right, no one is going to be opening your email and seeing your content. It doesn’t matter how great the email is, if they don’t open it, they will not read it.
Daily emails
I know a lot of companies that email daily. You get a lot more traction when you email daily. I know people are scared of sending daily emails. If you make them entertaining or useful then people will look forward to reading them.
Some of my clients who do send daily emails, get asked where the email is if one is missed. People start to build those habits. They will be looking for their emails every day. For example, you are my podcast listeners and it may be a habit to listen every Wednesday when a new episode drops. Or you listen later in your week. You plan it in and you listen.
When you do this and make it useful content, people want to open your emails.
The argument against this is: what happens when new people arrive on your list? You still need them to open the emails so they train the habit. I don’t want you to fall into lazy patterns if you know your emails are being opened by your core fans. That’s why you can’t be lazy in business. You need to be ingenious and pioneer new ways of connecting with your audience to keep it fresh.
There are two ways to keep it fresh. If you use one of them, your open rate will shoot up. I range between 22 – 40% open rates. Anything above 21% is good. You also need to analyse the metrics to do more of the stuff that works. When you create an automation, you can use this data to make your funnels better.
1. Curiosity
Curiosity is key to people opening emails. People want to close the loop, scratch the itch. Curiosity can be built in many different ways. You don’t want to be too ambiguous as that won’t work. For example, putting ‘purple hippos’ won’t work. Unless you have completely different subjects the rest of the time. But if you’re being ambiguous all of the time, it won’t work.
You need to make it relevant and tie it back into the email. If you try to dupe your audience, and there is nothing to do with purple hippos in the post, they will feel tricked and less likely to open your emails. You need to be clever but not trick people.
Shock factor
You can use the underscore to blank out a word. Their mind needs to fill in the blank so people want to open the email. You can bring the shock factor. One of my most opened emails has the header: “Are you being serious?” When you get this in your email, you want to know what it means. It might be a personal email. It builds curiosity. Inside that email is are you serious about becoming a market leader, because if not then this isn’t for you. It’s a way of polarising my audience. And a way of saying you need to step up to this. If you’re serious, you need to take action.
I’m all for correct timing and taking a break. But equally, you need to set about your plan to move forward and take action. Start doing something now to build momentum. Can you see how that builds the shock factor and curiosity?
Use this as a pinch of salt. Too much and people will become tired of it. Save it for the emails you want to work well. Polarisation doesn’t need to be negative or shaming people but there is nothing wrong with asking people to step in or step out.
2. Usefulness
This is the how-to headlines. For example, I’ve got an email that is “7 figure strategy inside”. It says inside this email will show you the strategy. It builds desire and people want what is offered. This goes wrong when you don’t get what people want. Or you get someone to open the email with a useful offering but it is not related to what you do. While you may be getting great open rates, it’s not converting into sales.
The whole point of your content is to nurture someone into becoming a client. If you are not focused enough on your message, it won’t gel. Keep your content and headlines on point within your niche. Drum in what you’re all about. If you don’t then people will not get what you’re about. You may get opens but not the conversions.
Make sure your offering is within your niche and relates to a product that you have. And that it is something they desire. You can use this as a market research tool. Look at previous subject headers, what were people opening? What did they want? Then create more of this kind of product.
Call-to-action
You don’t want to deliver your entire package and product through email. Sprinkle this throughout your email marketing so it demonstrates your expertise. They can see the results you will get for them. And the outcomes you can provide. Make sure your emails have good call-to-actions, so you provide them with a cliff-hanger. What happens next is you find out when you buy this, join the masterclass, book a call.
This needs to be on every email so you take subscribers on a journey into becoming a client.
These are my two biggest tips on creating emails with the best open rates while not forgetting conversions, staying relevant and niche. And not forgetting the cliff-hanger CTA.
We focus on this in the Elevate programme, which is a 12-month, 1-1 mastermind hybrid where you get my and my business partner’s eyes on your business. To scale up to being a market-leading business. The number one choice in your business. We help you gain the best clients and become the number one choice. A huge chunk of this programme is around content. It is what you need to focus on to demonstrate expertise, show people you are the one to go to.
Useful links
Book a Call with Jen – bit.ly/claritycallpodcast
Download my FREE Seven Figure Market Leader Roadmap –http://www.marketleaderleague.com/marketleaderroadmap/
Send your emails to jen@jen-hall.com
Available on Apple iTunes, Spotify & Stitcher (Just search Expert Unrivalled Podcast)