We’ve all been there! We’ve spent ages crafting an email to send to our audience only to be disappointed when we see the open rate.

With more and more businesses embracing the power of email marketing, we are now facing increasing competition to reach the inbox of our subscribers. We are therefore always seeking ways to increase the number of people who open, read and take action with our campaigns.  

This blog will explain the current statistics regarding email open rates and some best practices that we can employ if struggling with low open rates.

What is an email open rate and why is it important?

An email open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email. When the open rate is higher, it means that more people are seeing your content and offers.

For example, if you send an email to 1,000 subscribers and 450 open it, the open rate will be 45%.

Open rates give an indication of how successful an email marketing campaign is. When a campaign has a high open rate, people are interested in the content, which includes the subject line, your storytelling and your offers. A low open rate may indicate that people are not interested in the content and may unsubscribe from the email list.

What is the average email open rate?

There is no definitive answer to this question as open rates vary depending on the industry and target audience.

Mailchimp reports that the average open rate across industries in 2022 is 21.33%, while other research shows a lower open rate (Influencer Marketing Hub – 17%) or a higher open rate (Mailerlite – 27.91%)

A good email open rate is widely believed to be between the averages across all industries, making it between 17% and 28%.

How can I improve my email open rate?

No matter how many subscribers are opening our emails, it is always worth considering how we can improve our open rates to get our message to more people. Here are 5 things to consider:

Content

Your content should always be relevant to the target audience! This is key to achieving a good open rate. With relevant content, you can entice recipients into opening your emails time and time again.

Also, consider the style of writing in the email copy. Make it conversational and easy to read. Break up large chunks of text with emojis, different coloured fonts or bullet points. Use images and gifs wisely, don’t overload your emails with too much.

Send Time

The best time to send an email, again, depends on your target audience and your industry. People are less likely to check work emails at the weekend so if you are B2B send Monday to Friday.

Experiment with different times and find one that works for you.

Frequency

The frequency with which you send your emails is important to consider – too many emails and people may get sick hearing from you and too few mean that you lose opportunities to connect and build relationships with prospects.

I suggest that you try to be consistent and pick a frequency that works for you. I would advise that you don’t send fewer than one email per month and not more than twice a week (unless you are launching when you will be sending additional emails).

List Clean Up

You don’t want to continue to send emails to subscribers who are not opening your emails. This will naturally bring down your open rate.

Concentrate on building a list of engaged subscribers by providing relevant, valuable lead magnets and using opt-in forms.

Set a monthly task to clean up your list – start with those who have never opened an email from you and the look at people who haven’t opened one in the last 6 months.

Relevant blog – Top Tips for Creating Your Next Lead Magnet

Subject Line

It will come as no surprise that the subject line of your email is one of the most important factors when determining whether or not a recipient opens it. Consider the following when writing your subject line:

• Create something that evokes curiosity

• Use the recipients name – this has been shown to increase open rates by up to 26%

• If you’re making an announcement or sharing big news, make it obvious in the subject line

• Use humour

So if you have been struggling with low open rates, implement some of the changes listed above.

As always I would love to hear if this has been helpful and if you see any improvements as a result.

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