The very first thing which any reader will notice is the subject line. It is the most important factor which should resonates with the mind of the readers and should compel them to open and read the email. The subject line should be personalized depending upon the recipient's interest, and other factors. So creativity needs to involve creating words of motivation. The brand should make its mark so much so that the customers must set up expectations for the brand. Recipients should be anticipating the emails. For this the services or products provided by the company should meet their current needs and interest. The recipients should know what to expect when they are opening the email and they should be made to feel that they will miss something very important if they didn't open your email.



Apart from the subject line, lot of attraction also lies in the content of the newsletter. The content must be original along with being compelling. If the content of the email can be found elsewhere, the customers may forgo the thought of opening the email and instead going for the one of a kind content. The content should also have valuable information which can be used by the readers. It could concentrate on the free offer, or the big discount.

Another factor which forces the reader to open the email is his relationship with the company. Email readers fall into different categories. They can be irregular purchasers, potential clients, information hungry subscribers or existing clients. The method by which they decided to subscribe and the reason also tells a lot about the customer's interest. Did they find the website through a search engine or did they sign up when buying products? The subscribers who have sought for information and then signed up for the emails are more likely to open the email, when compared to subscribers who signed up while buying a product because of a pre-checked box meant for signing up which they forget to uncheck.

A strong personality is must for the success of the email. If the actual CEO or the marketing director is behind the newsletter, the readers get more interest in the email and the email open rates will boom immediately. The email list should be of high quality and should be well-maintained always. Also, efforts must be made in expanding the email list with targeted audiences which are more likely to open the email and take the desired action. Most of the times, long-time list members become inactive. So the list must be segmented based on list age and the inactive customers must be offered interesting incentive to bring them out of the hibernation.

The mailing frequency is also a very critical issue. Too frequently send mails will hamper the growth of email open rates as the recipients will get irritated, so does scarcely send mails as the recipients will not remember who you are. The time of sending also is important. Test different time and days for finding out which time works best for every type of audience. The time of the year should also be considered here. People tend to open emails less frequently in summer which means lower email open rates. Holiday season means good email open rates for commercial emails and lesser email open rates for information oriented emails and newsletters. The number of legitimate opt-in emails being caught in the spam filters is increasing by the day. Although the message is being shown as 'delivered', the end recipient won't be seeing the email at all. Care should be taken to avoid certain words and symbols which are the cause of spam filtration.

The bottom line is to do every job exceedingly well in order to achieve higher email open rates. For email newsletters, sixty percent email open rates can be achieved and for commercial emails, about forty percent email open rates can be achieved.

John Platania