Email Marketing Demystified

Tip one: clean up your list. This is how I keep open rates above 30%. When you keep emailing people who never open, what do you think Gmail and Hotmail do? They dump it in the spam folder. Even if the person hasn’t clicked “spam,” they still route it there. So to keep your emails out of spam — like when I email you and you actually read them — clean the list.

Tip two: use casual subject lines. In my testing, this typically lifts open rates by about 12%. In other words, forget the overly formal subject lines.

Tip three: use your email list to grow followers on your social platforms. This supports the rule of seven. In marketing, there’s a rule that when someone sees or interacts with your brand seven times, they’re far more likely to recommend it. It helps build the brand and grow. Do this and you will gain more followers and engagement across your networks. You’ll stay in front of people and keep promoting to them.

Tip four: follow up when people add items to their cart but don’t check out. A single email like this usually cuts cart abandonment by as much as 18% — for example, “Hey John, I noticed you added this toilet paper. It’s almost out of stock, only two left. Take a look.” It probably lands less well for toilet paper, but it could work for t-shirts, scooters, bikes, or whatever you sell.

Tip five: keep emails short and to the point. We found that emails under 200 words tend to see a click-through rate 7% to 38% higher. That’s a big gap. So instead of long emails, keep them short and focused.

Tip six: send emails early in the morning. We found that sending around 6 a.m. in your subscribers’ time zone gives you a better shot at an open — because when they wake up and check their inbox, you’ll be on top rather than buried below. If you’re at the bottom, they scroll through the top, lose steam, and stop. So send early in your time zone; 6 a.m. usually works best.

Tip seven: add value even when you’re selling — it just makes better customers. There’s a brand called Legion Athletics, a fitness supplement company. They pull a lot of revenue from email, over 10%. The way they do it: they don’t just sell you protein powder or supplements, they also show you how to use them well, the best workout routines, and how to get fitter and healthier while taking their products.

Tip eight: resend to non-openers. This typically adds another 8% to your open rate. I do it all the time. If I send 100,000 emails and only 25,000 or 30,000 open, I know I can get roughly another 8,000 to open by resending to everyone who didn’t and changing the subject line. The key is changing the subject line. If you don’t, it doesn’t work as well.

Tip nine: add countdown timers in your emails. The last few times I’ve done this, I’ve seen sales rise by roughly 19%. Only do this when you’re actually running a promo that’s about to end.

So I wouldn’t put a countdown in an email if the promo lasts forever, but if it runs for 24 hours, I’d add the timer — because it works.