14 Email Optimization Hacks to Make Your Open Rates Soar

The average email open rate for the legal industry is just over 21%. If your email campaigns are performing below this benchmark, you have some work to do to boost those open rates. The infographic below from 99firms.com — supported by case studies — provides 14 email optimization hacks that can help you raise your open rates by tweaking the elements of your current email marketing efforts:

  1. Subject lines.
  • Subject lines with only 3-4 words get the most responses
  • Using emojis in the subject line boosts open rates by 45%
  • Separating topics in the subject line results in 74% more opens (vs. one long sentence)
  • Personalized subject lines increase open rates by 16%
  1. Preheader content.
  • Use email preheader to increase open rates by 30%
  • Optimizing preview text can impact open rates by up to 45%
  1. Sender name.
  • 68% open emails based on the “From” name
  • 64% are more likely to read emails because of who it’s from
  1. Segmentation
  • Segmenting your mailing list delivers better open rates, leads, transactions, and revenue
  1. Personalization
  • Personalized email can increase median ROI by 122% and double your open rates
  1. Automation and triggering
  • Using automated emails can increase conversion rates by 53%
  • Triggered emails deliver 95% higher open rates than traditional emails
  • Triggered emails drive 624% higher conversion responses
  1. Buttons & call-to-action
  • Emails with a single call-to-action increased clicks by 371%
  • Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 115% higher click-through rate
  • Calls-to-action using the color red increases conversion rate by 21%
  1. Images
  • 55% of consumers turn on the images in the emails they receive
  • 65% of consumers prefer emails with mostly images rather than mostly text
  1. Video
  • Emails with video increase click-through rates by 200-300%
  • 59% of business executives prefer video over written content
  • 64% of users are more likely to take an action after watching a video
  1. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
  • Subject lines with a sense of urgency boost open rates by 22%
  1. Timing
  • 61% of people are more likely to open your email between 8 p.m. and midnight
  • 61% of consumers enjoy getting weekly promotional emails from trusted brands
  1. Mobile responsive
  • 42% of email opens occur on a mobile device
  • 70% of consumers delete emails that are not optimized for mobile
  1. Content
  • Emails written on a 3rd grade reading level are 36% more likely to get a reply
  • Emails of between 50-125 words yield response rates above 50%
  1. Email formatting
  • Plain text emails have a 25% higher open rate than HTML
  • Over 60% of email clients block images by default

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