At Resquared, we take our data-driven ethos seriously. We continually ask how we can improve – and when we have that eureka moment, we are happy to share it with our community. We’ve discovered that small and simple changes can lead to mind-blowing email open rates that smash industry averages.

Below, we have a screenshot from the dashboard of our awesome Customer Success Manager, Maureen Chesus, implementing the strategies we teach to our clients.

For reference, the average open-rate in our industry is 21%, so Maureen’s 61% far exceeds that. Check out the graphic below from Hubspot, which has benchmarks for a variety of different industries. 

Now is the time to consider different strategies you can take for your emails. While it can never be an exact science (we have bots to thank for that!), the two tips below will be able to guide your inbox toward world-class open rate territory.

Personalize the subject line

Does your go-to subject line look something like this – FREE WEBSITE AUDIT?! If so, you’re in luck because this is such an easy thing to change! Business owners receive emails with this subject line all the time, it is likely that it gets caught up in the noise of their inbox and never gets opened. On top of that, it is very vague, so there’s a chance your email may end up in the spam folder.  

We always recommend for our clients to personalize the subject line towards the niche of the business – and make it sound appealing! Here’s a great example from one of our clients below:

We’ve found that specificity is the main driver of increased open rates! On top of that, try and keep it under five words at most because shorter subject lines tend to be opened more frequently.

Keep it plain-text

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Spam filters are trained to block messages that may be harmful. The easiest way to avoid spam filters is to send plain-text emails. These are emails that contain no special formatting, images, links, and/or attachments. This is especially crucial for Gmail’s new inbox folders - Primary, Promotions, Social, etc. 

We personally recommend not even including a link to your website in your signature, as the HTML of that link can sometimes trigger a spam filter.

This may feel odd at first if you’re used to sending beautiful emails with infographics, pictures and attachments, but trust us, it works! There is always time to send portfolio links, listing scans & website audits later, but you’ll never get there if the message gets sent to spam. Consider the following: Do you take time to read the generic monthly “Marketing emails” or the emails that look like they were typed off an iPhone?

Tailoring your email strategy to include these two tips will guarantee your open rates climb drastically. Collectively, our Resquared clients typically see between a 40-60% open rate as their average (this is significantly higher than the industry average of 21%) 

Our Customer Success team also helps our clients increase the volume of messages they are sending, which helps with what matters in the long run – closing deals and building relationships. They are also always open to discussing any unique challenges your team may be facing – schedule a demo today to see how Resquared can work for your team!