5 Actionable Ways to Boost Your Email Engagement Rate

Are you ready to get more people to open and engage with your emails? If so, you're in the right place.

Email marketing is an excellent way to connect with existing customers and prospects. Ask any successful brand how they build rapport with their audience, and many will say through email.

The thing is, new marketers and business owners often have a hard time getting subscribers to engage with their emails. In fact, sometimes, they are happy if anyone takes action at the end of a campaign.

If this sounds familiar, don't worry; you're not alone. You'll also be glad to know that there are plenty of strategies you can use to get more people to interact with your emails.

Today, I'm going to show you five actionable ways you can boost your email engagement rate – even if you just started growing your list. These tips will be helpful and informative regardless of your industry, so don't stop reading now because we are just getting started.

Confirm Interest with a Double Opt-In

The first thing I want to talk about should take place as soon as a subscriber joins your email list. The goal is to get them to do something called a double opt-in.

A double opt-in is when new subscribers have to confirm their subscription by clicking a link that's sent in a confirmation email. This strategy helps to ensure that the email address is valid and the person actually wants to receive your emails.

If a subscriber doesn't click the link in the email, that means they may not have intended to join, don't want to receive marketing emails, or even entered the wrong address. Instead of wasting your time sending messages to people who aren't interested, you can focus on the people who are genuinely interested in your brand.

For the best results, I suggest sending the confirmation email immediately after someone subscribes. This will ensure they are there and already primed to confirm their subscription.

Double opt-ins are impactful ways to build a high-quality email list that's primed for engagement and sales. While it requires a little extra work upfront, it pays off through higher open and click rates, more loyal subscribers, and increased conversions.

Write Eye-Catching Subject Lines

Did you know that about 47% of all emails are opened, ignored, or discarded based on the subject line? This small line of text is your chance to stick out and convince subscribers that your message is worth their time.

If your subject lines are consistently ignored or, worse, marked as spam, it's going to get harder to reach your intended audience. As you can probably tell by now, writing eye-catching subject lines is not just an optional thing when it comes to email marketing.

I know some people struggle with subject lines, so here are a few tips you can use to optimize this part of your email and get more clicks:

• Keep your subject line short and sweet. We aim for a maximum of 6-10 words so desktop and smartphone users can easily get the gist. Plus, readers tend to prefer concise subject lines.
• Use dynamic personalization. Essentially, you'll want to use the information you've gathered to improve the subject line. For instance, you could use the subscriber's first name or reference something they purchased from you recently.
• Ask curious questions. Engaging your readers with an interesting question in the subject line makes them want to open the email to find the answer. When people see a subject line that says, "Did this happen to you too?" they have to click it.
• Include numbers. Whether it's a countdown (e.g., "5 Ways to...") or implies a listicle-style post (e.g., "10 Tips for..."), numbers in subject lines result in more clicks.
• Use split testing. Come up with 3-5 subject line options for each email and send smaller batches to different subscriber segments. See which has the highest open rate and use that to guide future campaigns.

Segment and Personalize

Segmenting and personalizing are some of the best things you can do to boost email engagement. Don't believe me? Consider this: 77% of all email ROI comes from segmented, personalized campaigns.

This statistic should make sense when you think about it. People are more likely to engage with messages if they're actually relevant to their interests and lives. Other statistics confirm this idea, with 80% of people saying they would prefer to see personalized content and offers from their favorite brands.

There are a few different ways you can personalize emails. I briefly touched on subject line personalization in the section above. But you can also personalize what's inside the message. For example, you may want to send coupons for items in the same category to a subscriber who bought a specific product from your store. If the discounts match something they would actually buy, there's a better chance they will come back to your site from the email.

You can use surveys, shopping habits, and signup forms to learn about your audience and create tailor-made campaigns for your subscribers based on their unique goals, pain points, and needs. At the end of the day, this system will dramatically boost engagement and conversions.

Send at the Right Time

Timing is more important for your emails than you might think. Imagine the difference between promoting your product on the sidewalk during the day versus night, and you can start to understand the differences. If there's no one around, fewer people are going to hear your message, which means fewer engagement opportunities.

The thing is, every business – and their audience – is different. An ideal email time for professionals is early in the morning. But if your audience consists of late-night, coffee-loving artists, you might have an easier time reaching them between 6 and 8 pm.

I don't like giving precise times to send emails because of how drastically different people are. So, with that in mind, my advice is to do your experimenting based on what you know about your audience. Do some tests and try to figure out when people are the most responsive to your emails.

It's also worth mentioning that you may have subscribers in other countries. Use their local time zones as a reference point so you don't accidentally send a chunk of your audience an email at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Once you find the best days and times to send your emails, automate future emails for those times, and you'll have a much better chance of getting readers to take action.

Use Clear Calls-to-Action

Finally, it's hard to stress the importance of using clear calls-to-action (CTAs). A CTA is what you want subscribers to do once they get to the bottom of your email. This could include them visiting a landing page, buying a product, responding, checking out your social media page, and virtually any other form of interaction that you can imagine.

The key thing to remember here is you should use a call-to-action button instead of a link. Contrasting colors and big letters will catch readers' attention, which could drive them to click. We found that using a button instead of a link boosted conversions by as much as 28%.

If people don't see or understand what you want them to do when they're done, they will simply go back to their inbox and continue their day. Aside from using a button, make sure you explain to your audience why they should click through. Once they know what's in it for them, they may decide to check out what you want to show them.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it - five solid tips to up your email game and get more people engaging with your content. Whether it's tweaking your subject lines, improving your calls-to-action, segmenting your lists, sending more personalized messages, or just testing different approaches, small changes can lead to big results.

The key is picking one or two strategies to focus on at a time and then tracking your metrics to see what's moving the needle. Don't get overwhelmed trying to do it all at once. With some consistency and commitment to optimization, you'll be raking in more clicks and conversions in no time.