{"id":10935,"date":"2018-06-07T16:56:40","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T21:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/article\/\/"},"modified":"2018-06-07T16:56:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T21:56:40","slug":"email-open-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/email-open-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"How can you raise email marketing’s open rates? Lunch might help"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The average office worker receives 121 emails a day and sends 40, according to a February 2017 study by the Radicati Group<\/a>. There were 3.7 billion email users worldwide, and that’s expected to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021 … that’s more than half of the Earth’s population.<\/p>\n

Social media marketing was supposed to render email campaigns obsolete. Instead, studies show that companies bring back $44 for every $1 spent through email campaigns. That kind of ROI means you’ll be getting more email, not less. Of course, with that much information flowing daily, no one has time to read everything that comes through the inbox. Smartinsights.com<\/a> calculated open rates across industries and found that it varies widely by industry. Overall, it found email-open rates of 24.88 percent and a click-through rate of 4.06 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Top 5 and Bottom 5 Open Rates by Industry<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Industry<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\nOpen Rate<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\nClick-Through Rate<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\nClick-To-Open Rate<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1. Publishing<\/td>\n36.59%<\/td>\n7.75%<\/td>\n21.17%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2. Restaurants and food<\/td>\n35.69%<\/td>\n4.18%<\/td>\n11.71%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3. Health care<\/td>\n35.54%<\/td>\n5.69%<\/td>\n16.01%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4. Education<\/td>\n34.78%<\/td>\n5.58%<\/td>\n16.05%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5. Non-profits<\/td>\n34.44%<\/td>\n4.99%<\/td>\n14.50%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Industry<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\nOpen Rate<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\nClick-Through Rate<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\nClick-To-Open Rate<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14. Health and beauty<\/td>\n24.71%<\/td>\n4.56%<\/td>\n18.44%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15. Technology<\/td>\n24.66%<\/td>\n3.91%<\/td>\n15.86%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
16. Retail<\/td>\n23.69%<\/td>\n3.47%<\/td>\n14.63%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
17. Automotive<\/td>\n23.60%<\/td>\n4.43%<\/td>\n18.79%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
18. Internet marketing<\/td>\n18.05%<\/td>\n3.16%<\/td>\n17.53%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/email-marketing\/email-communications-strategy\/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing\/<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Clearly, if you are using email blasts and automated marketing, you have to be creative to get a weary public to open your emails. This subject line worked on me: “Lunch is on us.”<\/p>\n

It came from\u00a0SharpSpring<\/a> and it was enough to get me to open the email. SharpSpring is a marketing automation company that features an all-in-one marketing platform. If you are using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program (Thinker is using Full Contact), a social media management tool such as Hootsuite, and a mass-email tool such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp, SharpSpring has a single platform that does what those programs do, plus several other features.<\/p>\n

Switching to something like SharpSpring at Thinker is a want, not a need, at this point. Still, we like to eat. We responded to the email and found it was a simple offer: SharpSpring would pay up to $250 for our office to have lunch as long as we signed up for and sat through a demo. That was easy enough. Ironically, we were celebrating the birthdays of two of our staff members and we used the offer on sushi from The Spider Sushi Bar in Rockford, Illinois<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other options<\/h3>\n

There are lots of ways to raise email-open rates. Throwing money at it is an expensive solution, but it can work if you can wow the reader and maintain a positive return on investment. In SharpSpring’s case, it was an effective demo; we’re considering the pros and cons of switching, which includes cost and training time.<\/p>\n

SharpSpring is a publicly traded company<\/a> that brought in $12.8 million in revenue in 2017. The vast majority of companies and organizations using email campaigns to engage new clients and customers are looking for less expensive ideas. Sujan Patel, co-founder of Web Profits, wrote 10 good tips for entrpreneur.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n