Want 60-70% Open Rates on Your Emails? Here’s How I Do It

This is a guest post by Andreas of London Cyclist.

He contacted me asking if he could share how he’s achieved increased open rates for his email marketing campaigns. I think you’ll enjoy his story and advice.

Take it away, Andreas! -Justin Premick

Listening in awe to a highly accomplished blogger about how she built her email list, I only had one burning question in my mind.

When the presentation was over, I eagerly worked my way through the crowd and asked: “I’m getting email open rates between 60-70%… what can I do to get it higher?”

The blogger looked at me a little shocked.

It Turns Out 60-70% Constitutes a High Open Rate

She sat down with me and we pinned down the key things that were contributing to the success.

Four of these you can easily implement in the next hour, while the last one will take a little longer.

Whilst I wouldn’t recommend you use email open rate as your only key metric, it’s one of those things that as email marketers our eyes can’t help drifting towards.

Here’s how I maximize mine.

Find Your Perfect Time and Stick To It

Through testing I’ve found the perfect time to send out my emails. Now, I stick to it religiously.

To achieve the same result, try split testing your emails and seeing which one receives the highest engagement.

Once you’ve found the perfect time, deliver on it consistently. This way subscribers come to expect it. Most of my subscribers get to work, flip open their email and grab a cup of tea while they read my newsletter.

Use The Headline and First Sentence Effectively

We all know a well written headline will tempt someone to open an email. But did you know there’s a another key thing subscribers see when they are deciding whether to open your email or not?

It’s the first sentence inside the email. I’m often disappointed to see most email marketers are missing this opportunity to lure people into reading the email.

I typically receive emails where the first line inside the email reads: “Click here if you cannot see this email correctly”. Hardly attention grabbing!

The first item in my email newsletter is my logo. I’ve set the alternative text inside the logo to a secondary headline I use to lure people into the email.

The HTML You Need For This

Deliver Exclusivity

My subscribers often receive content that is not available on the blog.

Whether that be an exclusive competition, a new article or something a little bit more personal about me or the site that I wouldn’t share on the blog. This gives subscribers an extra reason to be vigilant about opening my emails.

My open rates often skyrocket when there is content in the newsletter that cannot be found elsewhere.

Draw People Into the Next Email

Another method to make sure people are opening the emails you are sending out is to point out what is coming up next. If one of the topics in your next email strikes their interest then they’ll look out for it. I do this by simply having a “Next Week” section at the bottom of my e-mails.

The Big Secret

The above four techniques can be instantly applied to great effect. The final suggestion takes a little longer.

If you sat me down in a quiet cafe and pushed me further on the techniques that have worked I would lean back, scratch my head and tell you this:

Treat your email subscribers like you treat your best friends. Take an interest in them, learn what their needs and fears are and then create content and products that will suit them perfectly. Then they will always be eager for your next email.

Your Steps to Take for Higher Open Rates

• Create an email schedule. Deliver emails consistently and make sure readers know when to expect them
• Make sure the first sentence readers see isn’t “Click here if you cannot see this email correctly”
• In your next email think about what extra content you can give that hasn’t be seen before
• Hint towards what content is coming up to draw people into the next email
• Get to know your audience so you can cater your offers and content to them

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Andreas Kambanis started London Cyclist when he saw the need for a place for casual cyclists to meet and exchange tips online. He uses email marketing to sell his own products such as the London Cycle Routes eBook and affiliate offers. You can check out his newsletter here.

Original: Inbox Ideas

Unbounce and AWeber: BFFs

As you're probably aware, we announced the release of our API several months ago, allowing developers to start creating AWeber applications via AWeber Labs.

We also released one of the first apps for our own API, a WordPress plugin which allowed you to easily add AWeber forms to your blog.

Today, we wanted to tip our hats to the folks at Unbounce, a landing page service, who have created yet another avenue for AWeber integration.

What's Unbounce?

In case you aren't familiar with them, Unbounce is a service which allows you to easily create landing pages for your website. You would typically use these for your promotion specific campaigns - whether it's gathering new leads with their lead generation landing pages or sending your subscriber lists to a targeted landing page designed for conversion.

You can A/B split test different versions of the pages to find out which works best, leading to an optimized landing page and increased conversions.

You can learn more about their service on their website.

AWeber and Unbounce are a natural pairing for integration, since the core purpose of most landing pages is of course, a web form, with the goal of converting visitors into subscribers.

How Does The Integration Work?

The purpose of this integration is, of course, to have all the subscribers who sign up on your Unbounce page automatically added to your AWeber list.

Unbouce has kept things simple, so there are just a few steps that you need to do in order to sync up our two services.

First off, here's the video walkthrough that Unbounce put together:

     

Just to briefly go over setting up the integration, you can look at the steps below or take a look at either the instructions on Unbounce's website or our own knowledge base article.

1. In your Unbounce account, you can visit the page overview screen for any landing page you're working on, and click "Send leads to AWeber" under the Leads & Form Integrations section.
   
   
2. At this point, we will prompt you to enter your AWeber account login and password in order to authorize the integration. This information is not given to Unbounce at any time.
   
   Note: If you have followed this setup process before, the "application is trying to connect" prompt may not appear.
   
   
3. 3. After authorizing the integration, you can choose which AWeber list you'd like the subscribers from this Unbounce page added to. Then hit the Complete button.
   
   
4. Next, you'll need to log into your AWeber account. Once you're logged in, make sure that you're working in the list you chose to integrate with, and select Email Parser from the My Lists dropdown.
   
   
5. On this page, scroll down and check the box labeled "Unbounce Form Submission" in order to complete the integration.
   
   
   
   

Who's Next?

Do you have a favorite service or app that you'd like to see integrated with AWeber? Leave a comment, or better yet, tell them about AWeber's API!

If you're a developer yourself, you can start creating your own apps and integrations today at AWeber Labs.

Hat Tip To: Inbox Ideas

Should You Rent a List? Stats, Examples and Advice

While buying a list of email addresses is widely accepted as a bad idea, marketers still debate the merits of a different practice called list rental.

With list rental (sometimes called a sponsored mailing), you hand over your content to me. I email it to my list on your behalf. You never see the addresses. One way to think about it is that you're buying advertising to be shown to those subscribers.

Of course, no subscriber hands over their email address just hoping to hear from all kinds of marketers. So while it's different from buying a list of addresses, most rental campaigns just don't return the results you're looking for. (We've got proof.)

But some marketers do choose to use this to try and build their list or sell products. If you're one of them, or are thinking about trying this tactic out (in spite of the stats), we have some examples and suggestions that you should see first.

Easy Blog Commenting System

EasyBlogComments is a blog commenting service that utilises a blog network of thousands of blogs and millions of posts in as many market segments.  EasyBlogComments is therefore able to provide 100% guaranteed accepted high quality links that will provide you with the best SEO benefits.

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Getting Earth-Friendly Beyond Email

Glance away from the computer screen for a second and look out the window at a tree. (Now glance back.)

96 million of those are cut down every year in the US alone solely for the production of "junk" (postal marketing) mail.

By using our email service to market, our customers protect those trees. This Earth Day, we'd like to applaud them.

And we'd especially like to celebrate a few of those customers who go above and beyond with their own green business initiatives.

 

Living the Green

At EcoPlusHome, Bryan Kenny and his family are inciting buzz about renewable energy. For the full year of 2010, they demonstrated self-sustainability by living in a house that only used energy from renewable resources.

EPH sends newsletters about sustainable home opportunities, media coverage and government advances on the energy situation. With support from New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham and Bosch, they're "saving the planet - one home at a time!"

Check Into Eco Consciousness

And over at Environmentally Friendly Hotels, Kit Cassingham is creating a directory of earth-conscious hotels and resorts. Travelers can search for hotels by region to discover just how environmentally friendly their practices are.

"Lodging properties are huge consumers of resources -- electricity, water, chemicals, toiletries, and even food," Kit says. "It seems to have become a symbol of luxury and care to throw things away, be it water or packaging. By choosing a green hotel you can help cut that consumption and help change the attitudes of hotel management about the luxury of waste."

Kit uses email to connect with the hotels featured on the site, updating them on the site's policies, asking for their input and encouraging them to pass the word to other hotels.

So far, EFH has been featured on MSNBC, Newsweek and The New York Times, among other media outlets, and we wish it well as it continues to grow.

It Starts With AWareness

Here at AWeber, we also like to be green. Of course we do the standard recycling (so far no one has tripped on the piles of cardboard boxes we collect), but we also choose to work in an office space designed to be green.

We use daylight harvesting to conserve energy, our floors are made of highly renewable bamboo and we've installed skylights for plenty of natural light.

And, of course, we run our marketing through email. :)

How Green Can You Get?

No matter what the industry, there are ways your business can help the planet.

And once you've built an email community, you have people who can support you in your efforts.

What ways, tiny or tremendous, have you been saving the earth? How would you recommend other small businesses get started?

Tweet This

Hat Tip To: Inbox Ideas

Set Expectations With an Email Routine

Subscribers and email marketers alike are creatures of habit. We find comfort in the ordinary and expected daily course of action.

Most of us probably even follow similar morning routines. We wake up, drink our coffee and get a move on with our day - squeezing in a few minutes to check our email either before or after we reach the office.

Believe it or not, those self-imposed procedures that we follow repetitiously have a lot to do with how we respond to the email marketing efforts of the companies we follow.

Some companies understand this and set proper expectations for their readers, while others aren't quite there yet. Keep reading to see who gets it right, and how you can do the same with your own email marketing campaign!

A Tale of 100,000 Customers

This is a story of growth and success, of how one man's project became a business powered by a team 63 strong.

This story shows how a start-up business can go from one computer to a large, modern office; from a few contacts to 100,000 customers.

How do you get there, you're wondering?

You start with inspiration. You factor in friends, affiliates and customers who help you grow. (And whom we're very grateful for.) And you work hard.

See for yourself.

Send Perfect Emails With This Checklist

Don't you dare click that "queue" button.

I see you sitting there, with your AWeber account open, itching to get your next email newsletter out the door

.

Yes, you've thought up some pretty interesting content, you've checked your spelling and you've aligned your images properly. You can't wait to see what kind of response this one gets. I know.

But just hold on a tic. You've got one thing left to do. You've got to...

Roundtable: The Ins & Outs of Email Marketing Incentives

In email marketing , the topic of incentives is a hot one. Should you use them? Do they really work? What should you offer? Will people even care?

And are the subscribers you're getting legitimately interested in your emails or do they just want the added bonus you're offering?

The debate could rage forever (and probably will). But that doesn't get you any closer to an answer. Maybe these observations from six email experts will.

AWesome Emails: Rita’s Water Ice

They say the fastest way to a man's heart is his stomach, but around AWeber it's more like the fastest way to make friends with one of the many ladies in the office.

Bring Kelly a Starbucks Caramel Macchiato and she'll be your friend for a week. Have leftovers from last night's dinner for lunch? If you don't give Erin a taste, you're in serious trouble.

Our love of food has helped us stumble upon excellent email marketing campaigns before (hello, we realized that California Tortilla's emails rock while eating lunch there!). This time the awesome emails come from Rita's - the best water ice that just happens to be 3 minutes from our office.

Read on to see how exclusivity, charitable causes and involvement in social media sets Rita's apart from other water ice chains, and how you can do the same with your campaign.