How We Get An Almost 50% Open Rate On Every Email We Send

Two years ago, when we first opened our business and started growing our email list, we could count our subscribers on one hand. That’s right: Anna’s mom, Sarah’s husband, and a mutual friend all “signed up” to receive our initial marketing messages. (Allowing users to opt-in to your email list is always a best practice, but when you’re in a startup’s inner circle then you’re probably a founding member of their list.) We’ve since cultivated subscribers through local business networking, Twitter, an active blog with an email sign up, and drive-by website traffic. Our list has grown from those early days, and while the current number isn’t huge, it’s definitely mighty.

The Engaged Few Are Better Than The Passive Many

Let me explain. We believe that a small(er) group of passionate followers is more powerful than a large, passive cohort. Superfans discuss and share, evangelizing you to their friends and families. We’re not alone in this thought; other marketers understand that amassing hordes of lukewarm followers on social media platforms is a less effective strategy than talking with a devoted few. Conclusion? 100 wild is better than 10,000 mild.

The Numbers…

With that in mind, here are the statistics on a recent email campaign we sent to announce the launch of our new website. The open rate: a whopping 55.6%, or nearly 500% Mailchimp’s industry average. The clickthrough rate: 12.7%, or over 10 times Mailchimp’s industry average. The number of nice congratulatory emails we received in response: 7. (We don’t have stats on that one.)

…And How We Got Them

How did we achieve such spectacular numbers?

• 1) We kept the main text short. 132 words, to be exact. Thanks to humanity’s incredibly shrinking attention span, we have less than 8 seconds to capture our audience’s attention before they move on. We didn’t want to take the chance that our email list would be overwhelmed by a giant blob of copy, so we kept things compact.
• 2) We included one simple ask: visit our new website! We didn’t send our readers to 4 different places (more on that in a minute), to do four different things.
• 3) We created a nice graphic that celebrated our hometown. This email revealed the change in our business name from Powers + Ristorcelli Content Agency to Orlando Content Marketing, so its header highlights the fact that we’re proud of our city.
• 4) We mailed our superfans. This list is our best and brightest, our most interested and engaged. Because we’ve sent similar blasts to the same group with similar results, we had data to back up our feeling that this message would be well-received.

But How Do We Iterate?

This email had success, but that’s not to say its formula is untweakable. As you can see from the template’s design, we included 3 boxes at the bottom of the message, directing readers to blog posts and organizations we feel strongly about. Guess what? No one clicked any of those links. That’s right: the only clickthroughs we received were directly back to our new website, which was ultimately the email’s most important task. The lesson? Each email should include a single link, associated with a single request for your customers. Want people to check out a new product line? Link only to that; don’t send them to your FAQs, or a page featuring other products. Want customers to contact you for a free consultation? Link only to a landing page or contact form. You get the point: in an age of digital overwhelm, keeping things simple is the best way to get results.

And Now, To Repeat Our Success

Our goal for this email campaign was to touch our most fervent supporters, reminding them of our services in the new year. We’ll follow up with an email in a few weeks introducing a new client case study; the goal of that campaign will be more focused on lead generation. And over the next few weeks, we’ll be paying attention to the number of new email signups and general website traffic that this email generated. As with so many other aspects of digital marketing, smart content + a connected audience + attention to data will achieve results.