43% of subscribers often open my emails, 40% open sometimes, and 16% rarely open my emails.
Most people are happy these days to get 20% open rates.
What’s my secret for getting this high of an open rate?
Simple.
Read the email below that I sent on Cyber Monday a few years ago, and I’ll tell you at the end.
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[Cyber Monday] Jumping the curb in my 4×4
I had zero intentions of going out on Black Friday because of what happened to me 3 years ago.
To give my wife time to wrap presents I took my daughter shopping on the Saturday before Christmas.
Totally against my wife’s better judgment.
In my mind Chuck Norris and Superman wear Charles Kirkland PJ’s to bed because I’m Super Dad!
I was in trouble the moment I got off the interstate.
Traffic is bad on a normal day, but this was insane.
It took about 30 minutes to get into the parking lot, let alone find a parking spot.
Once we got inside it wasn’t any better.
I have never seen so many people in one place in my life.
People were packed into stores like sardines in a can.
You could hardly move.
It didn’t take long for my daughter to decide this wasn’t fun.
The lady at one of the checkouts told us it was taking 2 hours to get out of the parking lot.
I have ADHD and after a few cups of Starbucks coffee there was no way I could spend that much time stuck in traffic.
After traveling 15 feet in 10 minutes I started freaking out.
My daughter was getting fidgety and asking how long this was going to take.
All the mall traffic had to merge into one lane to get to the main road.
The main road looked like a ghost town because of the bottleneck from the mall.
So I did what any super dad driving a 4,317 pound 4 wheel drive SUV that can seat 7 people would do.
I asked my daughter if she remembered the Phineas and Ferb episode of Truck Driving Girl where they jumped the curb and drove across everything.
She said yes and I told her to hold on!
I turned the wheel hard to the side and drove up to the curb.
Before she knew what I was doing I gave it some gas and the front tires climbed over the curb and then the back wheels.
All you could hear inside the car was my daughter laughing at me.
I gunned it and we started driving across the grass at the mall to freedom. I slowed down as we jumped off the curb and hit the main road.
Behind me I could see people stuck in their cars pointing and one truck trying to follow me.
When my wife heard what I did she wanted to know what would have happened if I got stuck.
I told her if I owned a 4×4 that could not make it across the grass at the mall I would have slapped a “For Sale” sign on it.
So going out on Black Friday wasn’t on my list of things to do.
But my son who was home from college wanted to get out of the house and my wife and daughter were shopping that evening.
So I bit the bullet and ended up back at the same mall with my son.
Traffic was bad, but it was manageable.
*****I removed the offer because I am trying to prove a point.****
My opens and clicks are through the roof because I’m being me.
If your open rates are in the dumps it’s because you are only sending 1 kind of email.
That would be like having 500 TV channels and only watching 1 show.
People crave variety.
They want novel and new things in their life.
- Instead, I send out marketing news and trends.
- Personal stories about my life like the one above.
- F.A.Q. emails.
- Testimonial emails.
- Emails inviting you to follow me on social media.
- Emails about split test results.
- Updates about my podcasts.
Like right now I am testing ConvertKit vs MailChimp to see which one has the best opens. I have been using MailChimp for years and love it.
But I need more marketing automation power.
And yes, I will let you know which one I like best.
If you want your email open rate to go up, treat subscribers like your best friends and include some variety.
This is even more important for B2B marketers. Most B2B emails look the same, feel the same and bring meaning to boring.
At the end of the day, you are marketing to a person on the other end.
So stop sending the same stuff, inject some fun, vary your emails and give it some time.
If your list has tuned out it’s going to take some time for them to warm up to the style of your new email.
Thanks,
Charles Kirkland
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