5 Tips on How to Improve Email Open Rate

When you’re dealing with cold outreach, all you hear about is your reply rate and how to increase it. However, even before you can get to whether your email is replied, you face the great issue of email open rates.

The fact that the number of people that read your email message makes your reply rate grow as well seems extremely obvious, however, there is no 100% direct correlation between these two indicators. Though your reply rate is vital for your cold emails, it may not come to you at once. And this is where you need to use the strategy of the all-round campaign, including both first-step email and a number of follow ups.

So, what exactly do you need to know to avoid the situation when your email will be buried in your prospect’s inbox Unread forever till the end of time?

Tip #1: Use a creative subject

The only thing your prospect sees and the very same thing that affects their choice about whether or not they should open the email is the subject line (apart from the sender name, of course, but unless you’re an influencer, that won’t add any scores to your profile).

This way, make sure that you come up with a subject line as creative as possible achieve good email open rate.

Tip #2: Include company name

Whether you’re trying to reach out to an employee of a certain company or your B2B prospect, including company name in the subject can make it for you. Whenever I see the name of my company in the subject, I’m willing to open the email and at least scan it in case there’s something important for me.

This type of trick makes the email about them, not about your services or goods, touches what matters to your prospects and highlights the fact they are important to you. With Reply, you can do this as easily, as pasting {Company} variable in your template’s subject line.

Tip #3: Personalize

If you want to get even more results as for opening your email and have a moderate number or prospects you’re trying to reach, you may consider full customization to improve the email openability.

Do not let it scare you with hours of manual routine job, simply create a custom variable for your prospect list in email automation app that would include some very personal information – the last article they’ve published, a recent project they’ve been working on. Anything like that would make a huge difference.

Tip #4: Do not force it

Remember that your goal at this stage is not to make your prospects reply to your email immediately. Do not focus on one-step-campaign strategy only as it gives poor results and almost no real engagement.
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Use the first-step email to tell about them and how you can help them. Bring some real value to your leads and they won’t make you wait for long. Concentrate on how to help them with their customer pain that you’re aware of and do not expect them to get back to you unless you do several follow ups.

Tip #5: Check your “sender name” field

The last but not the least tip I use seems very obvious. Still, sender name field is something people often forget about even though they are detail-oriented in any other way.

Make sure your sender name is real and looks professional according to your presence in social media or field resources online. Checking this one will help you increase email open rate immediately if your sender name used to be something like “Scout Girl” or “Tim, the Professional”

Wrap Up

These 5 tips are the ones that I use to make sure my open rate will be high enough to provide the proper level of engagement with my prospects as well as to guarantee the perfect reply rate for these contacts after 1-2 automatic follow ups sent via Reply.

Feel free to share the tips you use for your cold outreach campaigns to improve email open rate in comments!