Like most eCommerce stores, you have a database with all your newsletter subscribers. You send them emails on a weekly/monthly basis. You have a very low open-rate and deliverability rate… How do you fix this? Here are 5 quick tips to get your email in the customers inbox and get them to open it.

Improve Deliverability

Tip #1 – Remove Bounced Emails

After every email you send, remove all the hard-bounces. Most email providers will allows you to view a report of which email addresses bounced back. Take that list and bulk-unsubscribe them from your list.

Most ISPs see that you keep sending to email addresses that don’t exist and they will start to think of you as a spammer and blacklist you.

Tip #2 – Include Unsubscribe Link On Top Of Email

Include a unsubscribe link at the very top of your email body. The ISPs scan for this and when they see an unsubscribe link on top of your email it tells them that you are serious about your email list integrity and that you are not a spammer.

Tip #3 – Text to Image Ratio

Another thing ISPs look for are emails with mostly images. When an email body consists of just images with very little text it has a higher chance of being spam. Spend the extra few minutes and add some text!

Improve Open-Rates

Tip #4 – Subject Line

Your subject line is the single most important element of your email after it has been delivered to the customers email inbox. This is what will make someone click to open the email. Write it well and always include a call to action.

Tip #5 – Include Short Text Snippets

Include a short text snippet on top of your email template. Most email clients offer a preview pane and this will be the first thing consumers  see. This is extremely useful with email clients such as Gmail and Outlook where they show a snippet of the email in the inbox itself.

Tip #6 – Use Alt-Text & Image/Table Sizes

Make sure you always include alt-text on all images because most email clients will block images when the email is first opened and will only display the images when the customer clicks “Display Images”.

It is equally important to use the width and height tags for all tables and images so that when there are no images displayed, you email is still structured properly. This will help the consumer understand what the email is about even without images and encourage them to view the full email.