Why good email campaigns matter: from 18% to 30% open rate with one word

Your customer list is the most underrated channel you have. These are people who already know you: they bought from you, asked for a quote or signed up. Yet most companies send them a newsletter twice a year, with a logo at the top, three blocks of text and a “Read more” button. And then everyone is surprised that nobody opens it.

We see something different with our clients. Companies that take their email campaigns seriously get leads out of them the same day. Here is what we have noticed over the past months.

1. Email your customer list at least once a week

A list you don’t email goes cold. People forget who you are, and when you show up again after months, they unsubscribe.

Once a week is the minimum. Not to flood people, but to stay top of mind at the moment someone needs something. Send something worthwhile every week and you become a sender people recognize and open. Email twice a year and you are a stranger.

The condition: every email has to be worth reading. A fixed weekly rhythm forces you to think about what you actually have to tell your customers.

2. Your subject line decides everything

Your email can be as good as it gets: if nobody opens it, it doesn’t exist. The subject line is the first click, and it is where most companies cut corners.

For one client, we saw what a subject line can do:

• Before: an open rate of 18.4% on 10,000 email addresses, and a click rate of 0.8%.
• After: an open rate of 30.4% on 18,000 email addresses, with a particularly well-chosen subject line of a single word.
• The click rate went from 0.8% to 2.4%, three times as much, because the content was fun to read.
• The result: 8 new leads that same day, 7 the day after, and another 5 on day three.

Twenty leads in three days, from one email to people who were already on the list. Without any ad budget.

What makes a subject line good? It is short, it sparks curiosity and it doesn’t sound like a sales pitch. And it matches what is in the email, or people will open it but nobody will click through. A good test: would you open this email if it came from a friend?

3. Don’t make your email look like a marketing email

People spot a marketing email in half a second: a banner, a logo, a discount button. And in that same half second, they decide to ignore it.

So your emails shouldn’t look like marketing emails, unless the concept is genuinely fun. Dare to be creative. A clever idea, a pun, an anecdote from the shop floor: those are the emails people look forward to. The goal is for your reader to wonder what you came up with this time.

And in between: good deals. Creativity gets people to open, a good deal gets them to buy. You need both.

4. Send plain-text emails too

Not every email needs a design. A plain-text email, without layout or images, looks like the emails you send to a customer yourself. It comes across as more authentic, and at first glance nobody can tell it is a marketing email.

Use those plain-text emails to take away pain points. Think of the question customers always ask before they decide, the doubt that holds them back, or the objection that comes up in every sales conversation. How long does it really take? What if I don’t like it? Why does it cost what it costs? Answer one of those questions per email, in your own words, and you remove barriers before anyone even calls you.

5. Send emails with your own signature

Send part of your emails as if they come from you: your own name as the sender, your own email signature at the bottom, with your title and your phone number. No “noreply”, no “The team at”.

People reply to a person, not to a company. And every reply is worth its weight in gold, because every reply is a conversation.

In B2B: dare to send cold emails, and aim for a reply

Cold email works in B2B, as long as you don’t try to sell everything in one message. Try focusing on pure reply emails: emails with a single goal, which is getting someone to reply.

Ask a question in one to three sentences at most. For example:

Hi {{first_name}},

I know you’re busy, so I’ll keep it short, 2 things:

1- We work out natural stone projects for interior architects down to the last detail, according to the specifications and with a large stock of marble, travertine and quartzite at good prices.

2- Our latest project for Mark Coucke ran flawlessly from bathroom to pool and garden, and immediately led to a referral.

May I send you our portfolio?

Why does this work? The email respects the reader’s time and says so. It gives two concrete proof points: what you do and a recent result. And it ends with one question that is easy to say yes to. No link, no attachment, no calendar to book. Just a question. Whoever replies “yes” is already in a conversation with you.

In short

1. Email your customer list at least once a week.
2. Put time into your subject line: one word can lift your open rate from 18% to 30%.
3. Don’t make your email look like a marketing email, unless the concept is fun. Alternate creativity with good deals.
4. Send plain-text emails too, that take away pain points.
5. Send emails with your own signature, as if they come from you.
6. In B2B: dare to send cold emails and aim for a reply, with a question in one to three sentences.

To see how an email works together with a strong landing page, read The power of email marketing. Want us to help set up your email campaigns? Book a call with us.