How to Boost Email Open Rate and Conversion Rate

It is the goal of every business, brand, or marketer to get high email open rates, high click-through rate, and high conversion rates on every email sent out to prospects and customers. 

Right, we all know the better these metrics are, the better for our business, the better for our brand, the better for our services, and the better for our product offerings. But what happens when our leads have delivered into their inboxes more than enough emails than they can possible pay attention to?

Statistics revealed that on average, email users receive 121 business emails per day—which means your email, on any typical day, will be competing with 120 other emails for the attention of your leads!

And to make matters worse, their scrutiny is going to be at its peak at the point of deciding which email to open—you know, they’ve got to make a decision on the emails they think is worth their time.

So as they scroll through their inboxes, they are going to be scrutinizing each of the emails: Is it a good fit as regards my needs? Am I interested in the offer? Am I interested in the content? Which email are more important to me right now (the once attending to my current needs or problems as against those that aren’t)? Which are my favourites? Which have valuable content to offer? Is it salesy? Is it spammy?

In short, your email is going to be filtered through several layers of judgment and scrutiny—you don’t want to get lost in the feeds!

And that’s why we’ve got this article for you—simple steps to take so you can get started with crafting email copy that sells.

So jump in and read on, on how to craft emails that converts.

Subject Line

Whether or not your email is going to get opened depends to a large extent on your email subject line—OptinMonster.com says 47 percent of email recipients open emails based solely on the subject line.

 It is your email’s first impression on your reader, which implies a lot of your prospects’ judgment would be occurring here, so you want to ensure you satisfy as much of your prospects’ judgment criteria as much as possible. 

Some “to-do’s” to guide you?

Firstly, be economical with your words usage. That is, use as less words as much as possible—five words long subject line is best. So you want to ensure to communicate whatever it is you are delivering to your leads with as less words as much as possible.

 However, sometimes you might needs to use more words, say seven words or ten words. In this case, try as much as possible to put the keywords in the beginning part of the subject line. Secondly, personalize your email subject line—add your customers’ names, it works!

Some “not-to-do’s”?

It is very important that you avoid certain words or practices when writing you email subject line. Avoid writing you subject line in capitals or using alphanumeric characters—you risk getting flagged as spammy. 

Secondly, reduce the usage of the words such as “free”, “percent off”, and “reminder” in your subject line. They have been found to negatively impact email open rate.(unbounce.com) 

A quick tip: There is a 56 percent more chance your email will get opened simply by adding an emoji (campaignmonitor.com)

Replace every “I” with “You”

It is very important when crafting your sales copy that you keep only your prospect in the spotlight. Write completely from the viewpoint of your prospects and avoiding talking as much as possible about yourself. 

You want to ensure you are always constantly touching on how your product can help solve their problems or satisfy their needs, and you want to do that 100 percent of the time. 

Not only does this keep them reading the email copy until the end, it boost their chance of hitting you CTA button.

Create an easy read content

Write your email content in a maximum of between 1-2 sentences per paragraph. You don’t want to create a content that is “heavy” on the eyes and look so much to take in. 

This could be even more important for you if your content is long.

 Secondly, bold the important part of your email so your prospects can just pick them as they scroll down the length of your content. 

This is very important because not all your leads would be interested or have the time to read all of your content. So make it easy for them to pick up the important points they need to know.   

Call to action (CTA)

Your email content is incomplete without a CTA. 

The CTA informs your prospects on the next line of action you want them taking, and you must make the message of your CTA as short, as clear and as authoritative as much as possible. 

On average, most CTA’s are three words long, with a strong action word as the first word. 

On a more important note, craft your CTA keeping the value proposition in focus. For instance, instead of “Sign up now”, using, “Get your feed now” would be better since that is your value proposition. 

Put the timer!

Your leads are going to hesitate when they get to the point of taking the very next step you want them taking—your goal here is to help them get past this “hesitation” and encourage them to take the desired action.

For your sales/promotional email, they are going to hesitate when they get to  the CTA button, they are going to want to put it off for another time, another day—you can’t let this happen, because let’s face th fact:  They aren’t ever going to return to complete the purchase or take the next line of action! So put the timer.

Make them aware their chances to complete the purchase won’t be their forever. 

Create a sense of urgency

If you want to make your leads even more responsive, enrich your email with a strong sense of urgency that encourage them to act. 

From the subject line, to the body of the email and the CTA, a sense of urgency can properly be tailored in to push the buttons—that is, make your leads take the next step.

Wondering how to create a sense of urgency?

One way is to set deadlines—similar to “put the timer!”

Another is to offer something scarce—carve out rare or scarce value propositions. This tool will be particularly useful when addressing really specific needs.

And lastly, make sure to sizzle your email with time-sensitive words—limited-time offers for instance.

Don’t forget to add a Postscript (PS)

This is the chance for you to summarize all you have said in the body of your email, including highlighting the bonuses, discounts and any free product or service delivery you might have stated in the body of your email. 

The reality here is, not all your leads will read your email copy, so a short postscript that highlights all the important details would just be enough a read—so make sure to add one, and remember to make it short, crisp and straight-forward.

Don’t be afraid of the unsubscribe button

This is a decision you have to address early on before you send out your first email.

 While it might appear counter-productive (since your goal is to grow your email-list), it is best to add the unsubscribe button. 

It has more good to offer than bad, and one good reason is that it will help you increase the quality of your email list. 

A long email list with a large number of irresponsive emails is not only useless, it defeats the purpose of email as a marketing strategy. So you want to ensure you have a clean and healthy email-list. 

Secondly, adding the unsubscribe button could in fact be productive in that it can boost brand trust and authority. Your prospects are going to trust you more and are more likely to convert if they know they can unsubscribe from your list anytime they want to—so don’t be afraid of the unsubscribe button.

A quick tip: Don’t send emails to a prospect who unsubscribes from your list even though it might be tempting to do so. It would benefit your brand image in the long run.  

Summary

Boosting email open rate, and click-through rates and conversion rates can be achieved with one and only one strategy—crafting emails copies with your prospects as focus of the content.

So remember to make your subject line short and crisp as much as possible, then touch more on what matters most to your prospects and less on those that don’t—for a starter, the easiest way is write from the point of view of your prospects ( remove “I’s” put “you’s)

Then, create a content that is easy on the eye by breaking it up into sections of short paragraphs. Then, end you content with a strong call-to-action and a postscript. Remember, to create a sense of urgency throughout the length of your email copy—put the timer. 

Success!

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