Feb 92 min read

Using Relevance to Drive Email Open Rates

There are so many ways to entice readers to open your emails. There is, however, one way to trump them all. We discuss this in today's blog.

Ace of hearts card pinned to a dartboard in dim light

Having a great subject line only takes you so far

Today's insight will be a quick one.

If your emails aren't relevant to your audience, it's guaranteed that, over time, your opens will diminish and folks will begin opting out of your emails.

While you may think your content is relevant to your audience, let's remind you that it goes a little further than that.

If we unpack what relevance in email marketing actually means, here are a few considerations I encourage you to look at.

Let's begin with this statistic from ZeroBounce, which clearly states one thing: Relevance is crucial to ensuring you get eyes on your emails.

These numbers are from their annual Into The Inbox Report, which provides a sneak peek into inbox audience behaviour across a large study.

Here's how you can go about using relevance to drive email open rates.

1. Look after the timing of your email frequency and cadence

If your strategy is simply to bombard your audience with emails, you're going to become irrelevant in the inbox pretty quickly.

Send regular emails that carry value. It's about the quality of your content, offer, and the value your emails carry for your audience.

Put yourself in your audience's shoes. How often would you like to receive emails and when is relevant to send certain emails you feel they'd care to engage with?

2. Segment & Personalise

Don't treat your audience as if everyone is the same person.

Why?

Simple: Not everyone in your audience is the same.

We say this often, but you have unique opportunities to segment your subscribers based on demographics, interests, purchase history, and where in the customer lifecycle they may be.

This will allow you to personalise your content to suit their needs while learning about how to tailor your emails to enhance their experience.

3. Keep it dynamic

Ditch the static "blast" template.

One of the more underutilised email features you have available is dynamic content.

You can adapt sections of your email to personalise your greetings, product recommendations, content and offers.

Keep your template consistent, but adapt sections of your emails to your audience's preferences and segment membership.

This could also mean sharing valuable content, industry insights, and customer stories.

You don't have to hard sell in every email.

(PS: These folks can help you if you're needing a hand with dynamic content.)