How to Have Your Emails Opened More Often

We all write emails and wonder if someone opens them. 

Now some research by Contact Monkey (www.contactmonkey.com) who analyzed 30 million emails have come up with some interesting conclusions as to the best way to get an outside sales orientated email opened.

What they discovered was it helps if it looks like it comes from inside the organisation. If the subject starts with “Re:” or “Fwd:” then the person receiving the email tends to lower their defenses and opens it as if it was an internal email. Makes sense really.

This just once again reinforces the fact that first impressions do count and made incredibly quickly. Do you read a subject line and make a decision right there as to whether that email is worth reading? Certainly many other people do.

The summary of the findings that Contact Monkey came up with are:

The Top 5 Best subject lines;

1 – RE: - 92% email open rate

2 – RE: Follow up – 90% email open rate

3 – RE: Update – 89% email open rate

4 – RE: Introduction – 88% email open rate

5 – RE: Checking in – 87% email open rate

The worst results were;

1 – The results are in – 7.25% open rate

2 – Four management headaches that can be solved in 1 hour – 8.35% open rate

3 – Ten Secrets for driving accountability and accelerating business results – 8.59% open rate

4 – Are your students protected – 9.36% open rate

5 – Ten Secrets for accelerating business results – 10.92% open rate

Some may look at those open rates and find it quite acceptable, but they simply don’t compare the 80%+ of the others.

The findings were that if you use 1, 2 or 3 words, then your opening rates were between 70 and 90%. As soon as you get into 4 words, then the opening rate drops below 15% on average. The key here is to make sure that you have no more than 3 words in your subject line if possible.

Not surprisingly mobile activity or usage has a major impact. They discovered that most emails were opened on a mobile device 40% of the time. If we remember that a mobile screen can only display 7 words max this could certainly cut off your subject line very quickly.

 So to summarise, a good subject line contains

- When in doubt, use ‘Re:’

- Use 1 to 3 words to maximize opening rates.

- Be direct as people are time poor and make fast decision. Less fluff. Focus on being relevant in your wording. If you want an introduction, then start with “Introduction” or “Intro”.

 Avoid the following:

-Any subject line more than 3 words as it reduces your opening rate to less than 15%

-Asking a question. Question marks do not seem to be popular as it shows you’re demanding in your subject line. Make a statement that requires action.

- Get rid of marketing language. If it looks like it might be from a sales person, then it’s almost certain you get rejected very quickly.

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