You spend time and energy creating a great email campaign to connect with your customers, but when you run the numbers, you are disappointed with the results. Why aren’t people opening your emails? If this sounds familiar, check out these possible culprits that could be tanking your email open rates.

Culprit 1: You are sending emails at the wrong time.

Most business emails are sent during business hours. However, depending on your email campaign, your audience and your content, varying your timing can lead to better open rates. For example, if your audience is mostly made up of people with a 9-5 office job, you may see better open rates in the mid-morning or late afternoon, when people are settling into their office,or taking an afternoon break. However, if your audience is primarily individuals who work outdoors and do not check their email as often, then the early morning or evening may be better.  The best way to discover the prime time to send your emails is by testing. Testing your send times is very important for email marketing. Send out the same email at a few different times to different sample groups of your audience and see which open rate is the highest. Some of the different times you can send your emails are: early morning, mid-morning/noon, afternoon, and evening. Test your email a few times in order to see which of those times is most effective.

Culprit 2: The subject line is bad.

The subject line is the key to getting someone to open your email. A subject line helps the reader decide whether to open the email or delete it. You could have an awesome email campaign, but if your subject line is unclear or just plain bad, it will not be opened. Your subject line doesn’t have to be clever or witty. Informative or straightforward subject lines work just as well, if not better. Subject lines that are too long or too broad will often be ignored as well. Need help coming up with a good subject line? Read our previous blog post on How to Write an Engaging Subject Line here.

Culprit 3: Your emails are landing in spam.

You’ve followed CAN-SPAM and CASL regulations, you’ve written great copy, but your email is still getting sent to spam. It happens, you’re not the only one. Many legitimate email marketers who send permission-based emails get spam-filtered occasionally too. Spam filters work by determining an email’s “spam score”. The spam score that sends an email to the spam box varies based on the email client and the user’s spam settings. However, there are steps you can take that can help you avoid spam filters.

• Don’t use ALL CAPTIAL LETTERS, $ymbols, or excessive punctuation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Avoid trigger words like “free”, “no risk”, and other spammy words.
• Don’t use broken links or too many broken images