As the name itself suggests, best email marketing practices are always welcome to inspire the creation of quality content, better position your product or service, improve sales, and so on.

And best email marketing practices referring to open rates are the best way to know if your email marketing campaign is working.

Those who can achieve the ideal open rate end up creating a competitive advantage that is hard to reach.

It’s worth noting that the “ideal rate” is relative: it all depends on the size of your valid email list and also your ability to engage your reader.

Why is this metric so important?

The open rate, which is one of the most important parameters of email marketing analytics, allows the understanding of other subsequent metrics that, together, turn into increasingly assertive communication.

Through it, we can see if the email subject line and preheader (text that appears right after the subject line) are appropriate, if the sending time is correct, if the list quality is good, among other important elements of communication in an email campaign.

But for all of this to be successful, emails need to be delivered to the inbox, right?

Hence the importance of email validation, both to improve open rates and for any other email marketing metric.

First of all, you need to know if the emails you are communicating with are real. And that’s where a list with verified addresses makes all the difference because this way, you avoid the risk of being blocked by providers.

And speaking of blocks, how about unblocking everything that affects the delivery rates of your email marketing?

Check out the best email marketing practices we have prepared!

What comes before email marketing design

Of course, email marketing design is an extremely important element to be planned in every detail, but reserve the right time for it.

When it comes to email opens, design comes last. This is because, before mapping out the visual content, some fundamental elements need to be organized. See what they are:

• Who are you as the sender? Did you know that the sender’s identification also counts for opening emails? If your emails are informative, using [@yourcompanynews.com] encourages the user to identify you among thousands of emails, such as [@fulanocommunication] and [@yourcompanycorp], for example. Therefore, be precise when marking your name as the sender. This can make a big difference when the user selects which message will be opened.
• Quantity of emails: repetitive messages fill the inbox and become tiresome. Regarding email marketing, frequency is also a very important strategic element. A high number of sends can label your brand as intrusive, and the results of this are the unwanted complaints, which are the resource that the user has to click the “this is spam” button. Much better to think about avoiding this before moving on to design, don’t you think?

Things everyone knows (really?)

• Subject line: the flagship that will make the user click and open the message. It’s not even necessary to comment much because everyone knows the importance of a good copy, mental triggers, and all the relevant et ceteras, but many people forget some resources that can make a good difference. Emojis (as long as used sparingly) and number of characters – 55 for desktops and 47 for mobile phones – are fundamental to attract the user’s attention in the right way, or better, accurately.
• Preheader: also called support text, it’s the little piece of text that is visible before opening the email. This text is super important because it can be used as an extension of the subject line. The correct size is 60 characters (maximum). This way, you ensure the maximum use of space to lead the user to open the message.

Did you see how much comes before email marketing design? Make good use of these email marketing practices to create a good open rate!

And do you know how to calculate this metric? That’s what we’ll see next.

Best email marketing practices to calculate email opens

You created your email marketing campaign and sent it to your contact list. Of the people who received the message, how many actually opened the email?

The open rate reveals the percentage of leads that opened the message, compared to the number of emails that reached the inbox.

If your email list is not properly validated, some emails will be rejected (or blocked), and this makes a difference in the open rate.

To calculate, simply divide the number of opened emails by the number of emails sent minus the blocked emails. Multiply the result by 100 to get the final percentage.

Explaining more clearly:

Open rate = [opened emails / sent emails – blocked emails] x 100.

Did you notice how email validation helps increase your open rate?

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What can be considered a good open rate?

Don’t be disappointed with the numbers:

• Very good: 20% +
• Good: between 10% and 20%
• Reasonable: between 6% and 10%
• Bad: 6% –

What current statistics say

According to the Statista website, in 2022, about 60% of marketers had an open rate higher than 20%. And this refers to worldwide data.

Approximately 35% stayed in the line between 10% and 20%, and only 5% of people working with email marketing reported less than 10% in the opening of their emails.

That is, in general, the email marketing open rate is good. This proves that email marketing continues to be the investment with the best cost-benefit ratio in digital marketing, with an incredible ROI of $42 for every dollar invested.

Best email marketing practices to boost open rates

The best examples of email marketing with a good open rate follow a line of organization of what should and should not be done.

Let’s start with what should be done: what catches the user’s attention among so many other emails? The subject line and the preheader.

Since each case is different, the use of emojis must be taken into account, however, a good copy and respect for the number of characters for a good read is fundamental.

Regarding the copy, phrases that arouse curiosity usually yield good results.

At what stage of the funnel is your lead? It is very important to have this information well defined so that your subject line and preheader are in line with the campaign objectives.

Now let’s move on to what should not be done: be careful with the frequency of sends. Many emails can repel the user.

Review your subject lines to avoid them becoming clickbaits. Also, make sure that the promise of the title matches the content of the email.

Pay attention to your definition as the sender: who feels encouraged to open an email with the sender “@noreply”, for example?

And lastly, but as important as everything said in this article, keep your email list updated with periodic checks, including (and especially) if you work with online forms.

Create your calendar of (good) content and monitor open rates to analyze user behavior regarding your communication. Notice what works best and invest in it!