5 ideas for boosting your response results

Dear Tally-Happy,

While Emma's not considering a bid for Senate (yet), we do have a few thoughts for folks like you who love the thrill of watching results roll in - especially if you'd like to see your open and click-through rates grow over time. So without further ado (and, alas, without Mr. Blitzer), here are five tips for increasing your response results...

---------------

Get permissions
The best thing you can do to boost your response rates is to follow the first rule of permission email marketing: send only to people who've asked to receive your emails. Above anything else that we'll mention here, keep in mind that folks who have quality, permission-based lists and who know their audience typically garner the best responses. Along these lines, you'll want encourage your readers to add your From Address to their address books, to help ensure safe delivery week after week and to keep your messages consistently in your readers' inboxes.

Questions about permission practices? Read our full policy here.

Proof your content
If your open rates are lower than you expected, there's a chance that a phrase or two in your email kept it from arriving safely in your recipients' inboxes. Our proof tab tells you how your campaign's content might fare against a standard spam filter, so you can pinpoint any potentially troublesome content before you send.

-> TIP: In addition to certain phrases and formatting, spam filters may block or quarantine emails that contain large images. Plus, the longer load times may make your emails less likely to catch a reader's eye. Aim for images no larger than 480 x 480 pixels, and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Keep your email size reasonable
As you're putting your newsletter together, remember that straightforward, easy-to-read content encourages your recipients to open your email - and keep on reading. And in addition to being reader-friendly, shorter campaigns are server-friendly, too. Lengthy blocks of text and lots of images can make it harder for receiving servers to accept your content, so run your campaigns through our proof tab. It'll let you know when your content exceeds our recommended file size of 40 KB.

Send when people are more likely to respond
It's important for your email to arrive when the majority of people are most likely to read it. The ideal send time for your organization depends largely on who you're sending to, so keep your audience in mind when scheduling or sending a campaign. And while there's not one "magic" sending hour, you may want to avoid scheduling a campaign for the close of business day or first thing Monday morning. For more on send times, check out this article from the Ask Emma archive.

Entice with your subject line
Along with the From Address, your subject line plays a major role in encouraging people to open your email. We recently put together a few tips on creating great subject lines - read through 'em here. If you want to see whether a spicier subject line makes a difference in your open rate, try dividing your audience into two groups, sending the campaign with two separate subject lines, and comparing the results after the big send-off.

---------------

If you have any questions along the way, we're here to help. And as always, we want to know how things go, so let us know what helped (and what didn't) after your next send-off - just drop a line to support@myemma.com!

Cheers,
Emma