60% open rate - How I did it and What I learnt?

Whenever I talk to my friends working in sales and tell them about the 60% open rate of my email campaign, I get a lot of questions. They are curious to hear what has worked to keep the open rate so high and what I’ve learned or experimented with.

While delving into research, I came to know the maximum email open rate companies generally gets is 15-30%.

The obvious question that hits my mind is what is going wrong? After analyzing almost 50 Email structures and talking to dozens of professionals working in similar field, following are the issues I figured out:

• Marketers simply ignores the importance of having an effective subject line. Did you know 68% of email recipients  report email as “spam” based solely on the subject line.
• Everyone is talking about themselves. All they talk about is “me, my company and my services” and missing out on addressing the main problem. 
• Another problem that I comprehended is “ wrong targeting”. Companies decides to buy an email list and start shooting the emails (a shady, yet common practice). The term “cold email” has been taken seriously. 
• Every day we receives number of emails that are immediately tossed in the trash or marked as spam. One of the biggest reasons of email being immediately tossed in a trash is due to the fact that they are not personalized. Your email marketing campaign can be improved by 14% just by giving a personalized touch to your email. 

There was a time when the internet was all new thing, “You’ve got the mail!” was super exciting phrase to see on your screen. But the novelty has worn off in the last couple of decades and that email is now just filled with junk. But no matter what, it’s still an important tool to communicate with consumers.

Research suggests, nearly 73% of the millennial still prefer to receive communication from a business via email. 

Therefore, keeping in mind the mistakes that marketers make and the importance of email marketing to reach customers, I launched my first email campaign. The success rate of the campaign was 60%. So I decided to share the strategic road map of the campaign to help marketers and sales reps add value to their marketing efforts.

The first thing in your mind while venturing into the realm of email campaign is that you must have an opt-in email list strategy. I built my own mailing list of 3000 potential customers on the basis of their revenue, funding and number of employees.

Frame a raw structure of a campaign and end up with a set of at least 6 emails to be sent in a period of 1 month.

But before the email structure, the most challenging part of the task is to land upon one best “Subject line”.

Below are the 16 subject lines I experimented with and using elimination process, hit upon the best one.

Yes, the subject line is “Your social media strategy is poor!”

It will never going to matter if your subject line is a massive fail.

I chose the subject line to create the curiosity in the mind of reader placing the idea that what might be there inside the email.

Now by choosing this subject line, I forced the reader to think that there is someone who knows about his company’s strategies and commenting upon it so strongly. He/she will definitely open your mail to know what you have to say next.

Now once it gets opened, the only thing that can drive your prospect is the email content.

I drafted set of 6 emails, and the first one is:-

While drafting every line of an email, just keep one thing in mind - Make the reader read the next line. 

My strategy was simple “talk about them”. There is no one who does not like to hear about themselves. And when it comes to business, you can’t just simply ignore it.

I analyzed the traffic data of every single company in my mailing list and used it in my first line to tell them that the social traffic on their website is extremely low. 

Coming to the second paragraph, I still evaded talking about myself and my company. I simply told them the data we analyzed is not good for their long-term growth.

Now once you have mentioned the problem, the next step is to entice them to come over a phone call. So I did by telling him that I have some strategies to improve your social media along with the contact details.

But that doesn’t mean I didn't talk about myself and my company. Yes I did, but in signatures with a link to my company’s website. :D

There are rare chances of getting a response on your first email. But don’t let your prospect forget you. Remind him of you again within 2-3 days with a follow up email.

I drafted a way too general follow up email for my campaign and below is the template:-

The idea was just to reminisce him that I am still interested in knowing what strategies his company is implementing to achieve their KPI’s.

And if they haven’t implemented any techniques yet I’d love to help them implement some. And if yes, I’d help them to review where it needs improvements.

The one new thing I tried was to take advance appointment for a short call. And it worked. Either they respond with affirmation or reply with the time and date that suits their schedule.

To my surprise, the response rate on the follow up email raised from 1% to 5%.

 But what if you still did not get the response? Now is the time to enunciate about your company. 

This is how I talked about it:-

I called this email template as my “Brahmastra”. It depicts the authority that my company has in the industry.

I included the attachment of the recent report published by my company with a quick revelation of the brands who have downloaded it.

While framing an email in a campaign where you verily going to introduce your company, mention the best service your company can provide in the email and how it is useful for the one you are sending the email.

My response rate to this email rose suddenly to 15%, leaving the top of the funnel full of qualified leads.

Whenever it comes to selling, remember one thing “Never sell”. Change your way from “I am selling you” kind of approach to “I am helping you”. 

I framed 3 more emails in this campaign which helped me to sustain not only the click rate but also the response rate.

To get the other 3 email templates or for any information or query, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]