An easy way to Increase Email Open Rates
Let’s face it, what people see in their inbox differs between various email applications on the market. You’ve probably noticed that an email opened in Gmail will appear slightly different when viewed in Outlook or on your smartphone.
So what can you do to make an impact across all these applications and devices to get your message read? How can you capture your audiences attention and essentially stick out in a crowded inbox? (The answer is a lot easier than you probably think.)
Keep your email message subject line under 40 characters.
Best practices state that e-mail subject lines should be under 56 characters to be properly read across all email platforms.
In a recent split test campaign I conducted for a client, we put this theory to the test and the message subject with 40 characters outperformed the message with 56 characters by a whooping… 16.3% in terms of open rates.
We segmented the list so that 50% of the users received the 56 character subject and 50% of the list received the 40 character subject.
It was a fun test to conduct and the results were interesting. A 16% increase in opens by deleting 16 characters. I dont know about you but I consider a 16% increase in open rates for email marketing to be HUGE!
Your results will most likely vary as there were various factors that played into our campaigns open rates, but it was interesting to see how a 40 character email subject performed.
So I challenge you to try this the next time you decide to send an email to yours list. Technically, you only have 16 characters to loose! 
