How One Little Minute Can Increase Your Email Open Rate
Have you ever had one of those moments when you thought to yourself, “It can’t be that easy…can it?”
Well, that’s what I thought after I learned this technique to increase the open rates of broadcast emails. Keep reading, and you just might think the same thing.
For those of you who don’t know, an “open rate” is the ratio of emails opened by the number of emails sent. Sadly (but truthfully), not everyone who you send an email to will open it. In fact, some say that an open rate of only 50% is actually quite high, but it all really depends on a number of factors, including:
- The size of your list. Usually, the bigger the list, the smaller the open rate.
- The quality of subscribers to your list.
- The copy of your subject line. It’s wicked important to have an enticing and eye-catching subject line to grab your subscriber’s attention.
No matter what your initial open rate is, there is one thing you can do that will immediately increase your open rate, and it only takes a minute:
Re-send the email to everyone who did not open it.
Think about it – sometimes people accidentally overlook certain emails in their inbox, or they may plan to open an email but simply forget. Resending your email to these people almost guarantees an increased open rate.
Of course, you do run the slight risk of a spam complaint.
As mentioned on many email service websites: “[Company] does not recommend that you resend the same email to contacts who didn’t open it the first time. Resending an email may result in a spam complaint against you as the contact may see multiple copies of the same email in their account.”
There are a few things you can do in your re-send, however, that will decrease spam complaints:
- Wait a Good Number of Days Before You Re-Send. I’d say 4 days minimum, just to be safe. That way, it gives people who receive the initial email time to open it before receiving a duplicate email from you. Plus, after 4 days, those who do not open it may truly have missed or forgotten about your initial send.
- Change the Subject Line of the Re-Send email. By doing this, your subscribers cannot simply look at their inbox and see two of the exact same emails. They won’t know the body is the same, because, well, they didn’t open it the first time.
- Be Honest and Mention the Re-Send. You can change the subject line and/or text within the email itself to mention that you are indeed resending this email. With copy such as, “In case you missed it the first time”, or “I had to make sure you read this because…”, you’ll decrease your chances of a spam complaint. I wouldn’t blatantly mention that you could tell they didn’t open your first email, because that may creep people out, especially those who aren’t tech savvy who may think you’re spying or up to some kind of voodoo.
It’s up to you whether or not you feel comfortable with this technique. I’ve used it several times in the past (not on the SPI newsletter, but on another newsletter that I manage), and it works every single time, sometimes increasing my open-rate 10-15% more. With a list of over 5000 subscribers, I have yet to hear any complaints.
Resending a Broadcast Email
I will be walking you through how to quickly resend an with Aweber, although I’m sure there are ways to do it on other email platforms as well.
1. Sign in and click on “Subscribers”
2. This will take you to the search subscribers area. In the “Select Field” drop down menu, select “Message Not Opened”
3. Click on the field on the immediate right and select he exact message that you want to resend.
4. Click on “Search”.
5. You will then see a segment of people who did not open the selected message. Name the segment and save it so you can recall it in the next step.
6. Now – copy/paste your original broadcast into a new one. Under the “send to segment” option, use the drop down menu to select the segment that you named in the previous step, which is again those people who did not open this email originally. This is the step where you can update the copy of the subject line and/or body of your email so that you can lessen the chances of spam complaints.
Theoretically, you could re-re-send your email to those who do not open your resend, although I definitely would not recommend it. If for whatever reason a person does not open your email after two tries, I would save your energy and just be happy with those who did open your email, and focus on your next campaign.
Ask The Readers
My question to you is:
Is this a good technique to practice? What are your thoughts about it? I’m interested in hearing from you, because I’ve heard both sides of the story before.
If you don’t have an email list yet, please check out The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Newsletter.
Posted on : June 18th, 2010
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66 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
I do this technique for any emails that I feel are important. If I am sharing what I think is a good piece of advice and people will learn something from it – I want as many people on my list to be aware of it.
Andrew
Thanks for sharing Andrew, good stuff. Cheers!
Pat,
I believe this would be good but I would want to fully being honest and saying clearly that it is a resend to just make sure they didn’t overlook it.
I think though that this all depends on your email subscriber count. For instance right now (just starting out) I would not want to do this because not everyone that subscribed (very low number so far) might be interested in that email they are just supportive. So, like if I have many subscribers this would be safer.
Another way to look at it is instead of sending them the same email. Ask them if they would still like to be subscribed so you actually have a healthy email list.
Good points, Derek.
Regarding the healthy list, I have a segment of text at the end of each of my follow-up emails that asks people if they would still like to stay subscribed. I think a smaller healthy list is better than a larger list that won’t open emails or click on links.
This is especially true when you’re paying Aweber more money per month to have a larger list (although I’m sure once you max out the top range, it doesn’t matter anymore…). You don’t want to be paying extra for subscribers who actually aren’t valuable (i.e. those who don’t want to read your e-mail).
Great thought Eric! As common sense as that sounds, I never really considered that I would be paying more for people that may not be interested.
Well I have never tried this before.
And I can’t say for sure whether I think this is a good idea or not.
But thanks for showing the method of resending an email in Aweber (including screenshots). I didn’t know how to resend an email through Aweber.
And I found this part really funny:
“I wouldn’t blatantly mention that you could tell they didn’t open your first email, because that may creep people out, especially those who aren’t tech savvy who may think you’re spying or up to some kind of voodoo.” lol
Kindest,
Nabeel
There are a lot of legitimate ways to track things that people do, and even things like location, age, etc. which could easily freak out those who are less experienced online.
I think it’s important to mention that this can be a bit annoying for some of your readers who don’t download images in emails. If they don’t download them they will not be counted as openers. That means someone will receive the email again even though it was read before.
Therefore I would be careful using this approach to often. It might make sense for important emails but don’t overuse it.
Robert
There is always a fine line between what you would count as spam and not. I receive multiple emails from one affiliate promoting one product.
Of course too much of everything is not good but if Pat has tested this with a list of 5000 without complaints, then it is a valid strategy.
You will have to decide how to implement this for your purposes
Yep – no complaints, but I only use this on the most important emails that people SHOULD be reading. Some people may even be thankful knowing you’re trying to help them if the information is that important. If you’re just trying to sell or promote something irrelevant, I wouldn’t use this method.
Pat, i get it that this strategy should be use for very important emails; what are the characteristic of such an email to you? As in which types of email content do you resend?
Has anyone tried this using Mailchimp? I will like to know how its done. thanks
To me, it’s only the time sensitive stuff that I know is important to my readers. I ask myself, would my readers really HATE to miss this email? If so, then it’s usually a go. An that doesn’t include promotional items, because often times they wouldn’t HATE to not receive those. Urgent, important messages.
Great point Robert – although I usually don’t include images in emails. Like you said, this method should not be overused and abused, and should only be used on the most important of emails. Thanks for the comment!
Whether *you* include them or not, any HTML email you send with Aweber includes one image for open tracking. Hence why the choice of clients to display remote images becomes a factor.
I’ve explained in more detail here, and provided an alternative way to segment.
http://www.bloggingteacher.com/should-you-resend-your-emails-to-subscribers-who-didnt-open-them
Another reason why most email companies suggest writing text emails, instead of html.
Good followup post on BloggingTeacher as well Paul – I left a comment, and encourage others to check it out. Cheers!
I like this idea a lot Pat. I actually didn’t even realize you could do that in Aweber so I’ll be giving it a try.
Aweber has A LOT of features that I’m sure are underused.
Mmm, I have never thought of this, because I’m busy with building my first newsletter.
It’s really a fine line doing this, and you have to make this as non-scammy as possible. I will try it out at least once, to see what happens.
Yes – the idea here is that you don’t want it to be spammy at all and it shouldn’t be if you’re legitimately trying to make sure your readers read an important email.
Hey pat,
Nice Post. I never thought of doing this.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great Post. Will Try someday.
~Dev
Cheers Dev!
Hi Pat,
Thanks for the advice! I’ve never thought of this before, and I’ll definitely give it a shot with my mailing list… It really makes sense, but I think the route I’m going to take is to change the subject line and go the “In case you missed it…” route with the email.
I did something similar, but not exactly the same (and not intentionally) recently and it did provide positive results…
I opened up my new free service ListZEN to the public and sent a newsletter to my list. The signup link was at the bottom of the newsletter article and I didn’t get the response I was expecting, so I assumed not everyone read the entire newsletter and didn’t get the signup link.
So the next day, I sent another email and just told them “In case you missed it yesterday…” and just gave them the signup link and I had a lot of new signups from that alone, so I can already see how your strategy would work.
Can’t wait to try it out! Thanks again for another “actionable” post… take care!
It’s funny how accidents sometimes turn out to be something great in the end! Way to notice the initial issue and follow up with something useful for everyone.
I hate it when subscribers accuse me of voodoo. But really this is something that I have thought about and wondered about the effectiveness and ethics of so it’s great to read so many opinions and to see what other’s experiences have been. Now, if anyone complains, I’ll just tell them that it’s OK by Pat and so it’s OK by me!
I wrote this post because I was interested in hearing what other people thought as well. As you can probably read, there are a lot of mixed thoughts about the ethics of doing this. On one hand, sometimes you don’t want to have to resend emails and fill people’s inboxes, even if they did not open the initial email. On the other, why not give it a shot because people should be subscribing to your list to read your emails, and if they aren’t, then they might as well unsubscribe – if that makes sense.
Great tip Pat.
Great content as always.
Thanks.
Cheers Tony!
Hey Pat,
Thanks for the great tip. I’ve never tried doing this before, but I can how effective it would be. When I was new to managing a newsletter subscriber list not too long ago, I was kind of surprised that the newsletter provider website could track when a subscriber actually opens an e-mail. I originally thought you could only track clicks on links within the e-mail.
Anyway, this seems like a very effective way to increase the chance that your newsletter will be read, and changing the subject line seems like it would be key to making sure you don’t come off as spam.
Question for you – do you ever do this with your scheduled/planned follow-up messages, or are you more likely to reserve it for broadcast messages (perhaps ones that have a sense of urgency)? I’m guessing it varies for everyone, but I’m curious about how you do it.
Thanks,
Eric
Good question Eric. I only do this with my broadcasts, and only on the most important of emails. Like you said, it varies for everyone, but it’s a sensitive technique that should only be used sparingly, if you’re comfortable with it.
I haven’t tried this, and don’t intend to with my list, but I can see where it might be beneficial to do on rare occasions. I have received re-sends though, and would likely unsubscribe if it happened a lot. (I usually check the text-only option when signing up for lists, so my opens aren’t counted anyway.)
Hey Jackie – I too would unsubscribe if I noticed it happening a lot. This is why I only use this on the most important emails. For instance, I used it to announce a deadline in the LEED industry to my subscribers. I didn’t want them to miss the email and the deadline, so I made sure I resent the email to those who didn’t open it. I think some of them may have appreciated the second attempt.
Hey Pat-
Interesting idea. I do think it is a little risky and should only be done if the newsletter had information you thought was very valuable. I read a good point in the comments above that if someone doesn’t download the images that track the open rate of the emails they could be counted as someone who didn’t open the email.
There are a few email lists that I enjoy reading and sometimes forget to download the images. I rarely opt to “always display images” on my emails so I could potentially be one that would receive the email a second time.
It is great to see that you had success with this method on one of your email lists and received no spam complaints. I think that merits more testing for this strategy.
Thanks for the great post Pat!
Like you and most everyone else said, I would only reserve this technique for the most valuable and vital of emails that you send out. I don’t really send (or receive actually) many emails from lists that have images in them, and I think the authors intentionally don’t put in images because they want the open rate reported to be true.
Hey Pat—
Great timing! I had sent a newsletter out early this week about a fellow bloggers eBook with aff link. I have about 55% open rate which is pretty high like you said. But why not improve it right?!?!?! Anyways, I just copied step-by-step your instructions and just sent out to the non-openers. I will have to come back and let you know how that goes tomorrow.
David Damron
The Minimalist Path
Please let me know how it goes! Cheers David! Way to take action!
Again, I wouldn’t try this on every single broadcast, just the most important ones. Good luck!
Hey Pat—
So, my results after resending to the unopened newsletter folks…
It has been about 20 hours since resending…
I up’d my open count by 9.6% (53 new opens) and had 9 clicks of affiliate product I was pushing.
I made 1 new aff sale (worth $23.50)which may only be one, but that’s one more in my eyes. Also, I look at it as it took me a couple minutes to do and I made $23.50 for less than 5 minutes of work. Pretty good turnaround.
Lost 1% of newsletter readers. This may sound like a lot, but I made up for that in new subscribers in the same day. Honestly, I think those who unsubscribed probably originally just wanted the free ebook so I would have lost them at some point anyways.
I definitely will not implement this every newsletter but here and there it will work just fine. Definitely easy and can be highly effective.
Thanks for the advice….I am satisfied with the results.
David Damron
Hey David – thanks for sharing. From the sounds of it – the trial went pretty darn well. I’d take 20 bucks for 5 minutes of work any day, and like you said some of the people who subscribe only do so for the free bonus, and would likely unsubscribe anyway.
Good stuff – cheers dude!
It is a good technique and in the past I thought of doing the same but I resisted. It sounds spammy to me. I will definitely get annoyed if the same email is sent to me twice, that to after changing the headline, and keeping the content same.
May be changing the content to just an one liner with a link to the original email and reminding the subscribers about the benefits of reading the contents in the original email is a better option. Just my opinion.
Thanks for your opinion! Like I said, this technique is not for everyone, and I’ve tried to outline the best way to make sure it’s not viewed as spammy. To me, it’s not spammy because you should be doing this on the most important emails that people should be reading, especially if it’s time sensitive. Of course, it’s better if it’s non-promotional and actually good content. If there’s an offer, then people will immediately think of it as spam – sometimes even on the first email.
Cheers!
Hi Pat,
I was recommended to your blog by Gregg Swanson of warriormindcoach.com as already am I loving the content! This first post is great, looking forward to reading many more and growing my online business.
Regards,
Jordan
Thanks for stopping by Jordan! Looking forward to your future comments. Cheers!
Great tip Pat. I’m getting ready to do a broadcast here pretty soon, excited to see how it goes!
Good luck!
I can see how this would work for Internet Marketers but for a normal blogger, wouldn’t they risk their credibility?
A couple things:
1) Most non-internet marketers aren’t as concerned about their open rates; and
2) Even so, i don’t see how this would comprise credibility, especially if you’re making sure people read an important email that could be useful or is vital for them to open.
I am just now starting to get into sending a newsletter out over at Financially Digital. My list is still in its infancy and so far I was feeling pretty good about my open rate. It never occurred to me to resend to the ones that haven’t opened. If someone told me this before I actually saw it here I would have been a little nervous about over intruding into peoples lives but, if they submitted their email addresses they want to see more of me right
Thanks for the perspective!
I was wondering if I should do this with my weekly ezine but since Pat, you have ably tested it, I’ll only use it for the important broadcast stuff. It also shows I care enough to provide good value.
Thanks!
Thiis is really great and absolutely true Pat!
I haven’t given this a trial before and I will give it a trial very soon.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
A wonderfully simple solution to a problem faced by many.
I am definitely going to try this.
Thanks for the idea.
Cheers Stephen!
[...] Flynn, a blogger I follow and admire, has published a tip for increasing your email open rates. He describes his technique in good detail and includes all of the right cautions, but ultimately [...]
Whats your take on Aweber lightboxes?
I have had some incredible success with a lightbox as a call to action. I get about 10 new subscribers daily and my aweber list has taken off. I suggested to Sean ogle of Location180 and he had similar success. Plus, I have not had one complaint about it.
Anyways, would like to hear your thoughts…
David Damron
TMP
I almost view them as pop-ups, although obviously less evasive. I myself get annoyed by them, so I don’t like to implement them myself. What do you think? I get about 30-40 subscribers a day without it.
I agree that they can be annoying. I have it set only to show on first visit and at the 17 second mark.
For someone small like me, I love the growth it provides. Like I said, luckily I haven’t had any complaints. Although people could just be leaving after the light box.
Someone else who uses it is Chris Guillebeau. He implements by it popping up when someone reaches the bottom of the article.
I am torn on lightboxes. I sometimes am annoyed, but not as much as a pop-up that has nothing to do with the site I am visiting. For example, if I go to SMI and a pop-up for the latest acne cream comes up, I am annoyed. If you had a lightbox just the first time I visited that was for your how to ebook, I wouldn’t be annoyed.
I don’t know. I am still on the fence, but it is working for me for now.
Maybe it’s something you should test in some fashion.
Thanks for your responses….
David Damron
TMP
Is anyone using Constant Contact instead of Aweber? Constant Contact doesn’t seem to have a function to check which of the subscribers didn’t open the email.
Hi Pat,
Thanks for the tips. I’ve been following your blog for quite some time and, your tips have helped me a lot in building my own blog.
Regarding your post, I don’t have a long email list yet. But as a subscriber, I can tell you that waiting 4 days to receive the same email is reasonable. Since most of us subscribe to many blogs, we get a significant amount of emails coming in our inbox each day. And since there’s also a life out there, it’s sometime difficult to read them all.
Some bloggers forget how annoying it can be to receive more than one email from them on the same day. I believe that avoiding sending multiple emails to your readers shows that you care about them and makes your marketing strategy more meaningful.
Thanks
Very good idea Pat. I will look into this in the future when I get Aweber.
**Off topic-Can anyone point me in the right direction? I want to know how to upload a pdf document to my blog so that others can download the pdf document straight from my blog. I know how to make a pdf, just not how to upload it and make it accesible by others.
Hey Will – try the plugin WP-DownloadManager. You can set it up to easily upload any type of files (pdf included) to have people on your blog download.
Thanks for the tips Pat. I usually resend my broadcast to increase my open rate, but I make sure that it has a different subject line and inform them like “in case you missed my first email…”. I really don’t think that it can trigger as a spam, because you just don’t want them to miss a very important email. Just continue to test and apply what really works.
Thanks
Gary
Looking at it from a sucscirber’s perspective, I have unsubscribed from a couple of newsletters because they mis-handled this technique and resent three or more emails in the space of a fortnight (and I did recognize them because I’m one of those who don’t download images) that were really just pushy promotions for their own or affiliate products.
On the other hand I have been grateful for the occassional prompt from other more responsible marketers, even though I’d seen the first email and just forgot to take the action.
I think the important thing to remember is it’s not the technique itself that’s sleazy or spammy, it’s the motivation behind it that makes the difference.
As you keep saying Pat, if you reserve this for the most important emails, that are time sensitive, and preferably things that help your readers out rather than you, you shouldn’t have any objections.
Pat, a simple and yet profound tip. I will be trying this with my next broadcast. Thanks.
Hi Pat
Great timing, I’ve been meaning to use this technique with my non IM business “day job” to clean up my 4 year old list (I couldn’t find a “How to” on Aweber), so thank you for that.
I agree with most others that, although a useful technique, I wouldn’t use it all the time as it could cause more harm than good and losing good subscribers should be avoided at all costs.
It’s great to offer value but no so great to be a nuisance.
Thanks again
Ken
Pat,
I need your opinon. I want to use Aweber in the future. I have seen blogs that have two opt -in forms. One is for Aweber(usually a free report they are giving away) and the other is to subscribe though RSS though feedburner. When I see two subribe forms on a blog I sometimes don’t know which one to sign up for. I think having two subcribe boxes is rather confusing for visitor that is new to blogging. I wanted to know if it is possible to use the Aweber opt in form and have it automatially send the subscriber your new content through email like feedburner would . If this is not possible , what if I had the Aweber opt in form and then just manually entered the email address of the subscriber into the feedburner feed so they get the feed through email. I am trying to kill two birds with one stone. I I want to be able to collect email address but at the same time send my new content to them though email without having two opt in forms. Wow! I am starting to confuse myself. Hopefully you understand what I am getting at. Thanks
Hey Will – you can use Aweber to send out blog posts, and it’s not a bad idea. However, I choose to offer both the feedblitz email opt in for the blog content (not though an opt-in form on the page, but through a link (See top right next to the rss button), and the aweber opt in for the newsletter and free eBook. The reason I do this is because I want to give people the option of signing up just for the blog posts, or just for the newsletter. Some people who want the blog posts only don’t want the newsletter, and vice versa.
It’s really up to you though, because I’ve seen it done both ways. I wouldn’t, however, like you said, put TWO opt in forms on the same page. Plus, in my opinion, people will subscribe to the RSS feed to the blog content more than with the email feed.
Pat,
Thanks for the information. This helps a lot. When I do get Aweber I might just have to find the link on your resources page