Increase Your Newsletter Open Rate by 40% With 1 Minute of Work

— June 16, 2017


Receiving mail used to be a rare and precious thing…


Nowadays? Not so much!


With the sheer volume of email we collectively send and receive every day, it’s a wonder we find time for real life at all. And for you, that’s a problem…



  • As a marketer, you want subscribers to make time for everything you send them.
  • Your subscribers want empty inboxes so they can get on with the day!

If you don’t grab and make them need to read your lovingly-crafted newsletter or sales message, their eyes will scan right over your email.


Then guess what? Trash can!


How Many Subscribers Open Your Emails?


If you’re typical, it’s around 35%. In “tougher” niches, it could be much lower…


Open Rates


(Source: Campaign Monitor.)


If you fall short of the average for your industry, you’ll want to do better. (Heck, even if you exceed it, you’ll still want to drive up that open rate!)


How do you do it? You know the well-worn, proven answers – compelling subject lines, benefit-focused body copy, irresistible CTAs.


How about something you don’t know? Something simpler yet really effective…


Re-Send Emails to Those Who Trash Them!


Here’s how…


1) Wait!


Give everyone a reasonable chance to open your original email. The consensus from experts is that it takes 3 days for at least 90% of a mailout to be opened.


So be patient!


2) Identify Your Targets


After 3-4 days, go to your email manager and identify the people who didn’t open the email. Each email platform (AWeber, MailChimp, etc.) has a way to do this.


We can’t cover all the platforms here, so you’ll need to root around (or ask support). To give you the idea of what you’re looking for…


In MailChimp, go to Reports > Subscriber activity > Didn’t open


Did Not Open


3) Re-send to the “Didn’t Opens”


Before you do, write a different subject line.


Many of your “didn’t reads” will have trashed your mail because the subject didn’t grab them. So make the new subject line compelling in a different way (try another benefit, or a better way of delivering the same one).


A second sending also finds some folks who were in too much of a hurry the first time around. So send this at a different time of day.


This is a BIG, SIMPLE hack that works every time!


Bottom Line Takeaway?


Re-sending emails to folks who didn’t read them, using a different subject line, at a different time of day, takes moments.


The payoff? If your open rate is ⅓ , you could get ⅓ of the remaining ⅔ in the evening mailout 3 days later. That amounts to 55% instead of 33%, which is a 40% increase!


A nice boost for less than one minute’s work!

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