8 Insider Tricks to Get More of Your Emails Opened

If the people don't want to come out to the ballpark,
nobody’s going to stop them.

— Yogi Berra

Because email marketing lives or dies on opens, you need to maximize them. Here are eight ways insiders do:

Qualify. Don't induce people to join your house list who won't love you, and don't expect much from prospect lists. Use "lead magnets" that attract only target customers, not every Tom, Dick and Harry; and rent only high-quality e-lists, such as those owned by magazines. The results if you do this right? According to the Direct Marketing Association, house lists enjoy an average open rate of 21%; prospect lists, 16.4%.

Segment. Don't broadcast; narrowcast. Segment your lists based on product interests, job titles, company size, locations, etc. Segmented campaigns outperform non-segmented ones by 14%, according to MailChimp.

Synchronize. Send your emails at the time of day people will open them: 8:30-10:00 am, 2:30-3:30 pm, or 8:00 pm-12:00 am. Avoid times when people are rushing to clean out their inboxes, deleting everything in sight. (NOTE: Times may differ for C-level audiences.)

Captivate. Tell or tease. Tell readers clearly what to expect in your email, if you believe it's an offer they can't refuse ("5 signs it's time to change LMS vendors"). Play to their curiosity, if it's not ("I heard you're a leader. Is it true?"). Here are more examples.

Clean. Low inbox rates necessarily dampen opens. Delete complainers and inactive subscribers on your list regularly. Using a cleaning service makes it easy.

Optimize. Design your emails for mobile devices. More than half are opened on them. Keep Subject lines short, too (6-10 words).

Infiltrate. Avoid spam filters by avoiding practices that trigger them. Here's a list.

Brand. Most readers don't open emails from senders they don't recognize. So, unless you're lucky enough to have an in-house "celeb," use your brand name in the From field.

Online's Goal is Offline

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

― Woody Allen

B2B marketers―smart ones―know online must lead to offline.

Because unless prospects experience your brand, there's little likelihood of large sales.

Digital alone doesn't cut it.

Digital's too delible.

As GE's CMO, Linda Boff, told Chief Content Officer this month, "Experiencing a brand versus just seeing something in the media is more and more important. It's more indelible. We think a lot about that. How do we bring the brand to life? And how are we going to show up?"

How will you show up?

You've got an online plan.

What's your offline plan?

Protectors

He went off to Congress an' served a spell, fixin' up the government an' laws as well; took over Washington so we heered tell, an' patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell.

— Thomas W. Blackburn

Walt Disney aired the first of three one-hour telefilms, "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter," in December 1954, and kicked off a nationwide craze for the coonskin cap.

The craze erupted in an era when Americans hungered for a return to times when protectors walked the land.

Parents and grandparents didn't count. Although they'd beaten the Nazis only nine years earlier, they chose in large part not to speak of it. They were too busy buying us coonskin caps. So we settled for Davy Crockett.

Sixty-three years later, protectors again walk the land, but they don't fight Indians or take over Washington. They assemble instead in our streets and parks, and fight Neo-Nazis and Klansmen.

My cap's off to them.

Patch up the crack in the Liberty Bell.

Mind the Gap, B2B Marketers

Nurturing leads is as important as nabbing them.

But a lot of B2B marketers, under the gun to generate leads, forget this. They ignore the "Content Consumption Gap," and blitz leads with premature follow-up calls.

NetLine examined 7 million long-form content downloads and concluded it takes 38 hours for a lead to read whatever he requests (C-level leads take 48 hours).

Dubbing the timespan the "Content Consumption Gap," NetLine urges marketers to practice patience and wait at least two days before following up a lead.
"Don't smother content-sourced leads," says NetLine's David Fortino. "Suggest that your sales team wait 48 hours before contacting, to ensure that the prospect is well informed enough to have an educated discussion."

Instead of dialing, Fortino recommends sending leads "a light-touch email:"

Thanks for checking out our white paper. I’ll check in with you in a few days to see what you thought. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.

Tar Water

The philosopher George Berkeley (after whom the California city is named) thought tar water could cure every ill.

Famine and disease wracked his native Ireland in the 1700s, prompting Berkeley to propose a cheap and easy solution in his book Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar Water.

Siris—the title referred to the Nile, whose waters the ancient Egyptians believed a cure-all—became a best-seller, making every literate man and woman in the British Isles, in the words of Horace Walpole, "mad about tar water."

The book claimed tar water was a "distillation of divine fire,” originating from a “secret and occult source.” Like the waters of the Nile, it could cure anyone of any affliction. Berkeley stopped short of calling tar water a panacea, but noted that “twenty-five fevers in my own family [were] cured by this medicinal water, drunk copiously.”

As prescribed by the philosopher, this cheap and plentiful elixir had the power to turn impoverished Ireland into a medical utopia.

Our own brand of tar water—courtesy the GOP—is freedom, a cure-all with the power to make America a medical utopia. Freedom from federally-backed health insurance, to be specific.

As Congressman Mike Burgess, referring to his party's plans to gut Obamacare, insists, “If the numbers drop, I would say that’s a good thing, because we’ve restored personal liberty in this country."

Little matter 50 million citizens could go uninsured, the GOP says: they're free. Live free or die.

Or maybe, live free and die.

As Granny said, "When you have your health, you have everything."

As Bobby said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."