Not long ago, a reader asked:
I have an email list of 14,000 plus people which keeps increasing daily. I get barely 10-12% open rates. Now, of course, I’m learning to write better subject lines by going through your material. But other than that, what would you do to keep a healthy open rate consistently in an ever-growing email list?
My answer:
I care less and less about open rates the more I realize and learn – from computer scientist types over the years – how inaccurate they are, unless something has changed I am unaware of.
But, besides that:
The concept of caring about open rates beyond checking your list’s health every now and then makes little sense to me.
It’s like caring more about having the most yards than actual points scored in football.
Or caring more about having the most base hits than runs in baseball.
Or caring more about winning the most popular votes instead of the most electoral college votes in US politics.
Example:
One of my “Email Players” subscribers once told me that, the first month he used the information in the newsletter, the client he writes for had the best month they ever had, and in a month that usually gets very little business.
But, he was still concerned about his lowly 9% open rates…
Again, these open rates worry-warts make little sense to me.
But, to throw a righteous pity bone to the people who are still obsessed with opens anyway, four surefire ways to ratchet them up are:
1. Drive more traffic to your opt-in page so you have more new leads to mail to
2. Get more of your emails delivered
3. Write better subject lines
4. Be someone people want to hear from
So simple.
So easy.
So… elusive to people who treat email like Pac Man or some other arcade game score instead of as a tool to make sales.
As for #1 above, I’ll be talking a lot more about that next month.
#2 is not something I worry much about.
And as for #3 and #4, that’s where the book I give to new “Email Players” subscribers comes in.
You can read more about it here:
Ben Settle
