Email marketing: how to get people to open your emails

We all know what it feels like to open an inbox and see a long list of unread emails. Some get opened immediately. Some get saved for later. And quite a few quietly disappear into the background.

For marketers, that creates an obvious challenge: how do you make your email worth opening?

There is no single trick that guarantees it. Good email marketing is usually the result of several small things working together — the right audience, a useful message, a clear subject line, good timing, and an email that respects the reader’s attention.

Start with who you are sending to

Before writing the email, think about the person receiving it. Are they a new lead? An existing customer? Someone who recently purchased? Someone who has shown interest in a particular product?

These people may all need different messages. Sending the same email to everyone is easy, but it is rarely the most relevant approach.

Give the subject line a little thought

Your subject line is often the first thing people see. It does not need to be clever. It needs to be clear enough to make someone curious about what is inside.

Compare “Our Latest News” with “Three ways to simplify your next campaign”. The second gives the reader a reason to care.

Avoid exaggerated promises and misleading subject lines. If the email does not deliver what the subject line suggested, you may get the open, but you lose trust.

Do not try to say everything

One email does not need to contain your entire marketing strategy. Choose one main purpose. Perhaps you are:

• Introducing a new product
• Sharing an important update
• Inviting people to an event
• Promoting an offer
• Sharing useful information
• Asking people to take a specific action

Once the purpose is clear, the writing becomes much easier.

Make the email easy to read

Most people are not sitting down with a cup of coffee thinking “I hope someone sends me a two-thousand-word email today”. They are scanning. So help them.

Use short paragraphs. Give important information some breathing room. Use headings when necessary. Keep your call to action obvious. And make sure the email works well on a phone.

Good design is not about adding more elements. It is about making the message easier to understand.

Personalisation can be simple

Personalisation does not have to mean adding someone’s first name to the subject line. It can be as simple as sending different content to different groups.

Someone interested in one product may not need information about another. A new customer may need onboarding information. An existing customer may be more interested in an advanced feature. Relevance is one of the most useful forms of personalisation.

Find your own timing

There are plenty of articles telling marketers the best time to send an email. But your audience may not follow the same pattern. A B2B audience may behave differently from a consumer audience. A local business may have completely different patterns from an international company.

Test. Look at your own data. Try different days and times and see what happens. Over time, your audience will tell you more than a generic recommendation ever could.

Look beyond the open

An open is useful information, but it is only the beginning. If your email is meant to drive people to a page, look at clicks. If it is meant to generate enquiries, look at enquiries. If it is part of a sales campaign, look at conversions.

The most important number is usually the one connected to the reason you sent the email in the first place.

Respect the inbox

There is a person on the other side of every email address. Give people control over what they receive and make it easy to unsubscribe.

Do not send an email simply because you have an empty slot in your content calendar. Ask whether there is something genuinely useful to say. Sometimes the smartest email campaign is the one you decide not to send.

Final thought

Good email marketing is not about finding a secret formula for getting more opens. It is about becoming worth opening.

Understand your audience. Send relevant information. Write clearly. Respect people’s time. Pay attention to the results. Do that consistently, and your emails have a much better chance of becoming something people actually look forward to seeing.