No matter what kind of email you send — promotions, follow ups, newsletters, etc. — You only have a few seconds to catch your reader’s attention and get them to open your email, read it, and click through on your email links.

The most difficult obstacle in email marketing is to get people to actually open your messages.

After all, you can’t provide value to your prospects, develop rapport, or establish yourself as an expert in your industry if they won’t open the skinkin’ email!

So let’s talk about the most important factors in getting people to open your email and increase your email open rates.

There are two things that you’ve got to focus on, you’re email subject line and the “from” field of the email.  Let’s do “from” first.

1.  Be Consistent With Your Branding.

What I mean by this is that you’ve got to put the same thing in the “from” field every time you send out an email so that people will know who it’s from.  I have one non-business niche newsletter that I send out that always has the name of the newsletter in the “from.”  On the other hand, all my business niche email goes out with “Arvada Yates” in the “from” field.

The point here is that you don’t want to put something different in that field every time you send out a new message.  That just confuses people and lowers your email open rates.

2.  Use A Real Name

I absolutely hate it when people send me junk email that doesn’t even have a real name in the “from!”   I get junk from completely fake names, and that’s bad enough, but I also get stuff from really clever people like:

GOOD NEWS!
Home Warranty
Investigation and Debt Settlement Committee
8.2 Megapixel Camera
A Slimmer You!

Or they just leave the “from” completely blank.  Do they really think I’m going to bother opening something from “GOOD NEWS!”… of course not!

Now let’s get on to those subject lines.

3.  Don’t Over-Hype Your Email Subject Line

This is one of the biggest mistakes that people make with their subject lines… they throw in a bunch of hype instead of just delivering a good subject line. Here are some over-hyped email subject lines from my own inbox:

Make $1000 Every Day from Google Adsense
EARN From The MOST POWERFUL MONEY MAKING Program On The Net
Gain $50k this-week with a poscard mailing system

Do they think anyone is going to believe any of this crap?  Hype just makes people hit the delete button without bothering to read about what you’re hyping.

4.  Don’t Use ALL Caps

I really hate it when people use all capital letters in their subject lines.  It’s hard to read and it makes you feel like THEY’RE SHOUTING AT YOU.

5.  Be Honest

Honesty always works better than dishonesty to increase your email open rates.  You can’t trick people into opening your emails, and even if you do, they won’t click through to your website or offer.  Here’s what I mean by dishonest:

Hunagshi Donbei global lottery (You Are A Winner)
RE:  Your Commission Has Been Sent
Your Payment Overdue
ATM Code Problem
Congratulations Arvada, You Just Made A Commission!

That last one REALLY ticks me off. I get those kinds of things all the time and I usually preview the email to find out who I earned commissions from… only to find out that it’s a scam.  I hate that.

6.  Don’t Use Extra Punctuation

I’m talking about those email subject lines that use a bunch of punctuation marks to point to the words or when people use ten exclaimation marks in their subject line…  Like this:

FREE Money!!!!!!!!!!
~~~~~%%%% You’ve Won Our Super Lottery%%%%~~~~
===>> Check this out <<===

Just write a meaningful subject line and you won’t need all that other junk, plus you’ll increase your email open rates!

7.  Limit Your Subject Length

Most email software and online services limit the number of characters that they show in a subject line, so your subject line should be 50 characters or less — including the spaces. If you write a longer headline than that, it will probably be cut off by the software and you won’t be able to increase your email open rates.

8.  Put A Benefit In Your Subject Line

Subject lines are kind of like the headlines of sales letters.  They have to capture your audience, get them to read on (open your email), and convey the benefits of your message.  In other words, give them a good reason to open your email.  Here’s some examples:

How To Get A Great Job In A Bad Economy
3 Free Tools I Love
Merry Christmas (Present Inside)

Subject lines are the most important factor in increasing your email open rates, so take the time to do them right!

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