Red C, Manchester based marketing agency, take an insightful look at email marketing opening rates in this easy to digest whitepaper entitled 'Under the skin of open rates'. Strategy Director, Steve White, looks at how the subject header, the 'From' name, the preview panel and the day and time of send can all influence the number of email recipients who open an email and suggests ways in which to maximise this through easy to implement tactics and testing.

1. January 2013
Under the skin
of open rates

2. Contents
Published: January 2013 // Written by: Steve White (Strategy Director)
About this document
Executive summary
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1. Outside influences
1.1 The customer relationship
1.2 Customer circumstances
2. The importance of the “From” name
3. The importance of the subject header
3.1 Length
3.2 Content
3.2.1 Personalisation
3.2.2 Urgency
3.2.3 Be contextually relevant
3.2.4 Don’t stretch the truth
3.2.5 Symbols
4. The preview panel
5. Day and time of send
6. Testing and results
7. Conclusion
7. Further reading and useful links
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3. (1) Refs
Copy
Intro paragraph
Title
About this document
“I have worked at Red C Marketing for approaching a decade and have managed email
programmes for a whole host of different clients from a number of differing sectors
including home shopping, travel, retail, insurance and leisure.”
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This document is intended to outline the process that I would advise when working to establish
your optimum opening rate in what is an increasingly difficult email marketing landscape.
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Steve White (Strategy Director)

4. 76
My inbox is becoming increasingly busy, increasingly noisy and I simply don’t have the time to
open and digest every single email I receive. I have messages relating to work, emails from friends
and family and of course, emails from retailers and businesses (not all of which I’ve opted into, I
may add). Marketing focused messages are always going to have to work harder than messages
from bosses, clients or loved ones, so email marketers need to do all they can to ensure that they
give their emails the best possible opportunity of being seen and opened.
Executive summary
The factors that influence whether
someone opens or chooses not to
open an email are vast and can often
be quite complicated. Some factors
are even outside of the influence of
the marketing department. For
example, the relationship you have
with that email recipient and their
circumstances will both have a major
impact on whether they open your
email or even consider opening it.
However, the good news is there are
several factors that can be influenced
and managed by email marketers, just
like you and I.
There are many factors that influence
whether someone chooses to open or not
open an email, some of which can’t be
influenced by email marketers or by a single
email message.
1. Outside influences
1.1 The customer relationship
Some email recipients will open and engage
with your emails each and every time you
send one, simply because they’re engaged
with your brand and email programme.
However, at the same time there will be
email recipients who are non-engaged
and it’ll take a great deal of persuasion to
convince them to open or engage with the
email, no matter what the content or key
message happens to be.
One factor that is going to influence your
opening rate, arguably more than any other,
is the relationship your brand has with that
email recipient.
The ‘From’ name, the subject header, the
preview panel and when you send the
email can all greatly influence what
percentage of your base actually
interact with your email marketing
message. Given the influence these
factors can potentially have over the
success of your communication, they
each need to be given a great deal of
respect and focus in terms of how they
are managed.The key challenge of any
email marketer is establishing how each
of these variables can work together in
the most effective and efficient manner,
in order to achieve the most
advantageous results. It’s only when you
determine this formula that you can be
content that you’re achieving your
optimum opening rates.
Engaged
Non
engaged
Live
Pre-
occupied
Missed
it
Content
Urgency
Context-
ually
relevant
Time and
day of
send
Personal-
isation
Length
Decision
to open
email
Preview
panel
‘From’
name
Outside influences
Manageable influences
Holiday
Lapsed
Prospect
Relationship
Customer
circumstance
Subject
header
Not in
market

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1.2 Customer circumstances
It’s a sad state of affairs that no matter how much testing and
refinement you build into your email programme there are always
going to be reasons that are out of your control that could lead to
your well crafted email not being opened.
For example, we have no control whether an email recipient happens
to be on holiday when your email message arrives in that inbox.
Although that person obviously has the opportunity to engage
with that email message on their return, how many of us adopt a
relatively ruthless filtering system when we’re faced with a
bulging inbox?
In a similar vein just think about all those disturbances or events that
have the potential to sidetrack you from sifting through your email
inbox.A knock on the front door, a telephone call, Little Jimmy asking
“What’s for tea?” or screaming the house down after falling over and
grazing a knee. If any of those scenarios were to happen you could
have lost your opportunity of an open!
Another key reason as to why an email recipient might not open an
email is if they’re simply not in the mindset to buy or respond. It is
of course possible to influence that customer into opening with a
persuasive subject header but there will be times when that email
recipient simply won’t open no matter what you do. For example,
if your email recipient has just suffered a financial setback such as
a faulty washing machine or an unexpected bill has just hit them
then the content of your email message will have little bearing as to
whether they open or not!
Although it would be extremely difficult to eradicate these outside
influences entirely they could be nullified a little by distributing
emails to your email recipients on days and times when historically
they’re most likely to open and engage (See 5.)
Once you’ve accepted that there are always going to be reasons why
an email recipient might not open or even consider opening an email
message you can concentrate solely on influencing those factors
that you can manipulate, test and control.
One area that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to manage is customer circumstance.
There are hundreds and thousands of different reasons why someone might not open an
email and most of them can’t be influenced by an email marketer.
Like the subject header, the “From” name needs to be prominent and
have instant stand out.There are differing views as to the best way of
achieving this objective, influenced by both the type of message and
the email recipient.
For an email list of engaged customers consistency is certainly
advisable as it would be nonsensical to experiment with the “From”
name when you’re generating positive engagement levels. I would
advise that you stick with whatever “From” name has become
recognisable to your loyal and responsive customers.Why change it
and risk your email not being recognised in your customer’s inbox?
However, we have seen drastically improved opening rates when we
have experimented with the “From” name for large scale mailings that
consist of both customers and prospects. For example, for a financial
services client we conducted several tests regarding the “From” name
as we wanted to establish what the impact would be if we were to
introduce a person’s name.We conducted the test on our monthly
incentive driven newsletter over the course of several months and the
results were remarkable.
By simply adding a forename to the company name i.e. forename@
companyname.co.uk, we witnessed an uplift in opening rate of 41%
and a 31% increase in click throughs.
However, although I have experienced some positive results by making
the “From” name more personable I certainly would steer away from
departmentalising “From” names, as they have a tendency to look like
spam. I’ve been amazed in recent weeks as to how many reputable
businesses are using generic “From” names such as sales@
companyname.com or deals@companyname.com. However, these are
not the worst offenders, some businesses even use email addresses that
are not only unrecognisable but are also incredibly unfriendly. In the
past I’ve seen noreply@companyname.com and donotemail@
companyname.com, which I’m sure serves the purpose of not
generating reply emails but I doubt this generates any warmth
towards the message, or indeed the brand.
The changing landscape of email marketing has led to the “From” name being an
increasingly important factor when it comes to open rates. Email recipients are
more time precious than ever, scanning emails quickly on their mobile device or
racing through overflowing inboxes on their desktops or laptops.Also, with the
growing number of people using mobile devices to interact with their emails, the
“From” name is increasingly influential given that subject headers can be cut down
to just 8 or 10 characters on some devices.
2. The importance of the “From” name

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3.1 Length
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it is close to a universal rule
that simple messages which can easily be digested are the best way
to take advantage of increasingly short consumer attention spans.
The other reason is more of a technical one, email domains often
limit the number of subject line characters that are displayed in the
inbox. AOL, for example, only allow 38 characters before they are
cut or shortened.
The character limits
• AOL: 38
• Hotmail: about 45 for their initial line (using word wrap)
• Yahoo!: 47
• Gmail: 130
• Outlook: 255 characters
The growing reliance on mobile devices affects this trend too as their
smaller screens display even fewer characters.
So imagine, you’re a swimwear specialist and you’re announcing a
sale on a new line of bikinis.You certainly have a few options with
your subject header.You could, for example, be highly detailed and
ignore character length:
“Colourful new beach bikinis are now available in a variety of
shapes and styles, and are fifty percent off for a limited time only!”
Although descriptive, it does suffer from several fatal flaws. Just look
below how these subject headers would show up in the following
platforms:
AOL: “Colourful new beach bikinis are now”
Hotmail: “Colourful new beach bikinis are now available”
Yahoo: “Colourful new beach bikinis are now available i”
However, the subject header’s biggest flaw is not that it’s a little too
long for some platforms, its major problem is the subject header
hasn’t recognised the character issue, as it isn’t using those all
important first characters as effectively as it could be.
Historically, the view has always been “the shorter the better” with the consensus being
that a subject header should be no longer than 50 characters.
So this is my turn, I’m going to announce to the world what makes the
perfect subject header. Is it the length? It might be. Is it the content?
Almost certainly. Is it the use of personalisation? Well, possibly.
Each of these factors are important and each of these factors will have
an influence on your opening rate, and I’ll detail why shortly. However,
they’re not the most important thing you require when you’re
developing a strategy for the perfect subject header.The most
important thing you’ll need is time.You have to give yourself time to
test, test and test again.What might work in one industry might not
necessarily work for another.The latest white paper from your well
respected email service provider might very well give you some great
pointers, but I guarantee you that each of their recommendations will
not necessarily work for your database.
You need to invest in time and it is only at this point that you can
comfortably say you are on the way to the perfect subject header.
However, as indicated there are several factors that will certainly
influence the success of your subject headers and each of them should
be tested.
There are thousands upon thousands of blog articles, white papers and discussion
documents that have been written on the subject of crafting the perfect subject
header. I think this is a clear indication as to the complex nature of this task. Every
marketer worth their salt has a view and everyone has an opinion.
3. The importance of the subject header

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It’s absolutely crucial that you front-load your email’s message with
the most compelling part of your proposition.
For example, the most important element to this proposition is that
you’re offering your customers a whopping 50% off a range of bikinis,
so surely this has to be at the forefront. So the subject header should
be something like this;
“Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All styles, all colours, all ready
for summer.”
This works so well, because even when AOL or Hotmail cuts the subject
header the customer is fully aware of the sale and the timing of it:
AOL: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All ”
Hotmail: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All styles”
Yahoo!: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All style, ”
Gmail: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All styles, all colours,
all ready for summer.”
Thunderbird: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All styles, all colours,
all ready for summer.”
Outlook: “Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All styles, all colours,
all ready for summer.”
With a limited amount of time to surf your AOL inbox, which email
would YOU choose to open, if you happened to be in the market for a
bikini?
Today only: get 50% off bikinis! All
or
Colourful new beach bikinis are now
In 2008,Alchemy Worx analysed 646 subject lines across 205 million
messages and across a number of different sectors.The results of this
research unearthed several interesting trends. Firstly, it supported the
view that shorter subject lines work harder when it comes to opening
rates. However, what was just as interesting was that longer subject
lines, despite poorer open rates, actually generated better click-through
rates when compared to the shorter subject line.
If you think about this logically then the findings made by Alchemy
Worx make complete sense. Shorter subject lines are indeed more likely
to be more ambiguous than longer subject lines and therefore should
attract a greater volume of opens because of its relative intrigue.
However, although you have the volume, are you attracting the right
openers? Are you in fact eliminating those who may be in the market
for your proposition by being so ambiguous? The research suggests this
is exactly the case.They discovered that more detailed and lengthier
subject lines generated better click-through rates, suggesting that
although they didn’t necessarily generate volume, they did generate
quality. By detailing the email’s proposition in the subject header you
are giving email recipients the opportunity of buying into the
proposition at open stage, making the decision to click a less
considered step.
3.1 Length (continued) 3.1 Length (continued)

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Subject line 1.
This weekend only at your local ABC store, special savings
on televisions!
Subject line 1.
Special savings on televisions at your local ABC store this
weekend only!
Without fully understanding the brand or the email’s audience it would
be difficult to predict which of these subject lines would generate the
best opening and click through rate. However, it does illustrate the
point that content and structure are more influential to the success of
a subject header than its length.
Although we have seen similar results in other industry sectors, it’s
important not to overdo the use of name focused personalisation. It is
now being used by many retailers (and spammers) meaning something
that was once quite novel and interesting has now become a little
ordinary.
However, as email technology becomes more advanced there are
increasingly more interesting ways to add relevancy and personalisation
into your subject headers. For example, we have conducted several
experiments in the home shopping and retail industries where we have
acknowledged the customer’s relationship with the brand. On both
occasions we have identified email recipients as being non-engaged with
the email programme and we’ve made reference to it in both the subject
headers and the email’s content.We tested this approach against a
‘non-personalised’ approach over the course of 6 weeks.
Re-engagement email 1
Forename we miss you!
Main programme email 1
Just in... great fashion for the beach.
Open now!
Re-engagement email 2
Come back forename and have 15% off
Main programme email 2
Got a special occasion? Have 15% off the perfect outfit.
Re-engagement 3
Let us treat you forename with 20% off
Main programme email 3
Hurry up to 20% off in our
Summer Spectacular.
Although the opening rate of an email can be influenced by the length of the
subject line, it is undoubtedly its content that has the greater influence. I could have
two subject headers of the same length but due to their content and structure they
would differ in performance.
3.2 Content
For example, we recently tested the impact of personalisation with a
financial service client, who distributes in excess of 3,000,000 email
messages per month.The results were remarkable considering the
relatively simply test that we implemented. By adding the forename to
the subject header we saw an incredible opening rate uplift of 36% and
a click-through rate increase of 37%.
Name Your car renewal is due xx/xx/xx | Get king-size Cashback
offers | Extended Great British Sale!
vs
Your car renewal is due xx/xx/xx | Get king-size Cashback offers |
Extended Great British Sale!
Subject headers are no different to any other form of marketing, the more relevant and
personal you can make your message, the better the results tend to be. Over the years
I’ve conducted several experiments across several industry sectors proving exactly that.
3.2.1 Personalisation

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Littlewoods creating that all important sense of urgency
Subject header: Sale still on – 7th June – don’t miss out!
River Island incentivising their customers with a time-limited free
delivery offer
Subject line: Enjoy FREE delivery until Friday – shop our new arrivals
Lakeland creating a sense of urgency
Subject header: Be quick! Great deals on kitchen and home solutions
from Lakeland
Creating a sense of urgency in your subject line can also improve the response of an
email, especially if it’s combined with a relevant offer. It is human nature not to want
to miss out on something, so exploiting this in the subject line will undoubtedly create
uplift in response.
3.2.2 Urgency
For example, during the UK riots of August 2011 Swinton reacted by
sending emails to both their consumer and business customers asking
them whether they had been affected by the ‘riots’. The subject
headers were timely and relevant and generated exceptional open
rates, especially considering that the emails were sent to live
customers, lapsed customers and prospects.
I’m absolutely sure that 63.5% of those who received the Swinton
Commercial emails weren’t actually directly affected by the riots.
However, given the nature of the troubles, we would have generated
opens from recipients who were just interested to see what we were
saying about a huge national news event.This is crucial, as generating
incremental opens and clicks is what will eventually lead to
incremental sales.
Relevancy is something every email marketer should invest in and establishing
ways in which to do this will always lead to positive results. For a number of clients,
we do our very best to include references to current affairs and popular culture.
3.2.3 Be contextually relevant
Important Customer Information;
Riot damage – 32.1% opening rate
Important Customer Information;
Riot damage – 63.5% opening rate
If you images are not displaying please click here
For policy and claims advice regarding the UK riots, call Swinton Commercial on 0845 120 2734
Small Business Insurance
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Liability Insurance
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u
u
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Dear Sample,
Following the shocking events of the past few days, we want to offer
these words of reassurance.
As a Swinton Commercial customer, you should be covered against
looting, fire or other structural damage. Business interruption and damage
to stock will also be covered, if you have included this on your policy.
Therefore, if you have experienced damage to your business property
and stock as a result of the UK riots, we urge you to contact us as soon
as possible, so we can help you process your claim quickly and efficiently.
You can call us on 0845 120 2734 9.00am-5.30pm Monday-Friday
and 9.00am-1.00pm Saturday.
King regards
Swinton Group Limited, registered in England number 756681, is connected for the purposes of the Insurance Companies
Regulations 1994 to MMA Insurance plc, Gateway Insurance Company Limited and Provident Insurance plc. Registered office;
Swinton House, 6 Great Marlborough Street, Manchester M1 5SW. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
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The Swinton Commercial Team

10. 1918
We’ve also used other more light hearted events and news stories as
stimuli for highly contextually relevant emails for Swinton. Each of
which have generated extremely positive open rates (and have even
won a DMA award!).
However, clearly it’s important not to take a stance on a particular
issue or subject such as politics as you’ll be in danger of alienating a
proportion of your audience.
3.2.3 Be contextually relevant (continued)
The subject header doesn’t just have an influence over the opening
rate, it also influences all key performance indicators. So there is very
little point in generating an excellent open rate by stretching the truth
if you’re then going to disappoint your openers and ultimately turn
them off from clicking through.
With each of my clients I always maintain that our subject headers can’t over
promise in an attempt to inflate the opening rate. It’s important to maintain a
sense of honesty as misleading or tricking a customer into opening an email could
ultimately destroy trust, damage your brand or even drive your customers away.
3.2.4 Don’t stretch the truth
Over the last few months I’ve witnessed more and more retailers
experimenting with symbols, like stars and hearts, within their
subject headers. In the past, the use of symbols has been frowned
upon as there were concerns around deliverability. However, as email
deliverability becomes more of an issue around IP reputation rather
than content, more retailers are introducing symbols into their
subject headers as they strive for ‘stand out’ in the inboxes of their
email recipients.
Examples:
3.2.5 Symbols
Interflora - the flower experts ** Order before midnight for next day delivery on Valentines Day **
Room Restaurant Winter Sale *BONUS DAY EXCLUSIVE* MONDAY 13th - Book Now **
Libby@swinton.co.uk To Gail with
Very.co.uk Show someone you them, order your Valentines gift today!
Have the images in this email been rationed? Get them back here.
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great Cashback deals through Swinton on 0800 781 8779 or
www.swinton.co.uk
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The results were quite astonishing as the re-engagement programme
outperformed the main email programme’s open rate by 222%.
It’s this level of personalisation which retailers have to incorporate into
their subject headers in order to stay ahead of the competition. Simple
forename or surname personalisation won’t be enough moving
forward, as that level of personalisation will become increasingly the
norm. Demographical data, customer behaviour and transactional data
will all have a part to play when it comes to developing subject lines
that have the ability to stand out in increasingly noisy inboxes.
3.2.1 Personalisation (continued)

11. 20 21
The reason why the preview panel is having such an influence is email
recipients have the ability to make a judgement without actually
registering an open and more importantly not seeing the email’s
complete proposition. For example, if a recipient happens to be using
Outlook as their email platform, which has preview panel on by default,
they literally could base their decision as to whether they open or don’t
open by simply looking at the top 2 to 4 inches of the email’s design.
As marketers this presents us with a challenge, as not only are our
opening rates being skewed but we are having to make that top section
of our email design work incredibly hard.
However, as difficult as this sounds, it is achievable with some pragmatic
design and by following 3 simple rules.
Rule 1. The golden rule when it comes to designing email for the
preview panel is to ensure you’re establishing the email’s proposition or
key message in that top 2 to 4 inches. If your recipient is scrolling
through their emails using the preview panel then they can be left in
no doubt as to what you’re offering – in basic terms give them
everything they need to make an informed decision.
Rule 2. You give yourself the best chance of generating an open by
designing your email with a good proportion of its content being HTML
text.The reason for this is more and more email platforms, like Hotmail
and Outlook, have their images turned off by default.
For each of our email clients we ensure we utilise HTML text for key areas
of the email design such as headline message, letter copy, navigation
and call to action. By doing this we give ourselves the best chance of
convincing our email recipients to fully engage with the email.
The preview panel is another factor you need to consider as this is becoming more
influential in determining your email’s opening rate.
4. The preview panel
Rule 3. The third rule we adopt with all our email clients is to
incorporate an HTML line which sits just above the email design. By
doing this it give email marketers another opportunity of outlining
the email’s proposition. The key to preparing this line of html copy
is ensuring that it can work not only in conjunction with the subject
header but it can also work in isolation.
The preview panel is already a hugely influential factor but it is only
going to increase in importance. Not only has Gmail introduced a
preview panel but there are rumours both Hotmail and Yahoo are
planning to make their preview panels the default inbox setting too.
4. The preview panel (continued)
The simple answer to this question is: it depends.What works for
one email marketer might not necessarily work for another and at the
very least, your market place, your customer set and whether you sell
B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business) can be
hugely influential.
There have been many studies conducted and data collected on the
best time to send emails and these studies can help influence your
email strategy. But although this information can provide a foundation
of knowledge there is no better strategy than tracking
your own send results and using this to determine your optimum
send times.
During my research I came across a very insightful and interesting
article in the 60-Second Marketer from Jenn Abecassis, who listed both
the positive and negative aspects of sending email on each day of the
week based on her experiences.
Does the time you press send and the day you distribute an email actually affect
the response rate?
5. Day and time of send

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Monday
Pros: Office work has not filled inboxes yet.
Cons: People are in “work mode” and won’t be focused on non-work
tasks.
Best Practice: Send emails late Monday morning, after people have
cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes.
Tuesday
Pros: People have organised their week, and can find personal time
for emails.
Cons: Emails poised for a weekend response may be too early.
Best Practice: Use Tuesday for emails that request action during the
working week.
Wednesday/Thursday
Pros: People are planning their weekends and gearing up for personal
time.
Cons: Time during the working week is running short, and requested
action may be pushed back to the following week, or even forgotten
about.
Best Practice: Focus leisure and weekend notifications during these
key weekend planning days.
Friday
Pros: Studies indicate fewer total emails sent compared to the rest
of the week, increasing visibility among the myriad other messages.
Cons: People hurry to leave the office early, and may not take time
to view non-work related emails.
Best Practice: Send emails early in the day to give consumers more
time to take action. An unopened email from Friday will fall to the
bottom of an inbox on Monday, and is often discarded.
Weekends
Pros: People check emails on weekends, too, so weekends may have
untapped potential.
Cons: A weekend email may seem overly-intrusive to some people.
Best Practice: If possible, try to avoid Sundays and focus on
Saturdays, which may have a better response rate.
Although Jenn’s points make perfect sense and I can see the rationale
behind them, they are based on her own individual experiences and not
on your market or customers, so basing your email strategy on it would
be a risk.
It is entirely possible for you to be left surprised by your own test results
and for them to contradict everything that you thought might have been
the case prior to your testing – this is exactly what happened to me
during some testing I conducted in 2009 with a home shopping client.
This experiment lasted several weeks and the results were significant.
Historically, we had always distributed our emails on a Thursday or Wednesday.
However, after conducting a 6 week test it was clear that Friday, Saturday and
Sunday were by far the better days to send our emails. In fact, there was a
49.5% uplift when distributing email on a Saturday when compared
to Thursday.

13. 24 25
6. Testing and results
However, before you delve into a robust programme of testing you
should consider and analyse your previous subject headers and see if
you can identify any trends that might have driven an increase in
open, click or conversion rates. These learnings might not give you
the definitive answer but they will give you some clue as to what
you might want to test moving forward.
The first step when it comes to email testing is to divide your data
up into test cells. Personally, I’m not a massive advocate of the
classic A/B test as I find it doesn’t give you as much flexibility as an
A/B/C/D test does. Make sure that the cells are randomly split as you
need to ensure there is no bias.
In addition to that you need to make sure the split email creatives
are exactly the same, except for the subject header or ‘From’ name.
It is also vitally important that the tests are sent out at exactly the
same time and on the same day. Any deviance in this, even a couple
of hours, will undoubtedly result in the results being skewed.
Subject header length, copy style, tone of voice can all be tested
using a simple testing matrix, as can incentives and brand names.
For example:
Cell 1.
Brand name and more than 40 characters
Cell 2.
No brand name and less than 40 characters
Cell 3.
Brand name and less than 40 characters
Cell 4.
Hold out group
The ‘From’ name, the subject header’s length, its content and the time you send your
email will all undoubtedly affect the performance of your email. However, there isn’t
a secret formula that guarantees success.There isn’t a one size fits all solution. I’m
afraid the only way you can optimise the performance of your email’s first impression
is to test.
However, the results from a single test might not necessarily be
conclusive and it would be dangerous to take these results and
assume that they would be suitable to run for the whole programme.
Tests need to be run over a series of campaigns.
When determining the successful subject header it needs to be
judged on your most valuable metric e.g. revenue, downloads or
registrations. It most certainly should not be the opening rate as
although it might drive more openers, it might not necessarily drive
the most demand.
6. Testing and results (continued)

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Returnpath – www.returnpath.net
Goodmail – www.goodmailsystems.com
Email marketing council blog – www.spammcop.net
8. Further reading and useful links7. Conclusion
Achieving optimum open rates is no easy feat, but it can be done as
long as the right influencing factors for open rate success are
established and made to work together effectively.The key factors that
need to be focused on include the ‘From’ name, subject header, preview
panel and timing of when an email enters an inbox.
In addition, it is also important to be mindful of the outside influences
that can dictate the success and open rate of your email.These include
customer relationships, a factor that can be split into engaged and
non-engaged, and managed to some extent by tailoring subject
headers.The second, more complicated, outside influence is customer
circumstances an area that has just too many variables to be
completely overcome. However, it can be marginally managed by
distributing emails on particular days and times that are known to
have better opening success rates for your target market.
Then, once you have worked on your opening rate key factors and
considered the outside influences, it is time to do one final thing: test,
test and then test again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a secret formula that
optimises the performance of all email programmes.The only way to
guarantee a successful opening rate is to monitor and test factors such
as subject header, copy style and tone of voice, and then identify any
trends that have driven an increase for that unique email.
Of course, the results from a single test are very rarely conclusive;
multiple tests are often necessary over a series of email campaigns.
Yes, this may be a long and laborious process, but one that is necessary
to achieve the opening rates you desire.

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