5 Oct 13

Email open rates are lagging – largely due to the volume of email that individuals are receiving these days.

According to MailerMailer, last year open rates increased in the first half of the year and decreased in the second half. This could be attributed to the fact that people take vacations in late summer (before the start of the school year) and they get busy with the holidays.

On average in 2012, open rate performance was mediocre.

“Banking (16.8%), Non-Profit (16.1%), Consulting (15.9%), and Small Business (15.9%) scored the highest open rates in 2011 while Medical (6.5%), Media (7.5%), and Education (8.2%) resulted in the lowest open rates.

When compared to the 2010 industry findings, the largest open rate increases were seen in small business, banking, and wholesale. The largest declines were seen in education, government, and transportation.”

So how do you increase your open rates and reach more of your audience?  

MailChimp suggests that there are a variety of best practices to implement from creating descriptive, not catchy subject lines to avoiding “spammy” words and ALL CAPS to ensure you get past spam filters.

Gigabark has found through our customers that by simply calling attention to your email by sending a phone call or text message ahead of your email campaign, you can increase an email campaign’s open rate by as much as double.  Whoa.

What does doubling your open rate do for you?  It means doubling your engagement with your audience, increasing the number of impressions you can make, and ensuring that your message is consumed.

Any organization using email that is not employing a variety of communications strategies to engage their audience is missing out!