It is always difficult for your email newsletters to stand out amongst the many emails we receive each day. If you follow some basic rules you can get better results from your email communications.

1. How to improve your email
marketing open rates
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

2. Introduction
Basically, open rates are the percentage of people,
minus the hard bounces, who have opened your
email newsletter, out of the total list you have sent
it to. They are used by most marketers as a key signifier
of success.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

3. Introduction
At Matizmo, our email marketing system providesvaluable
tools and metrics to allow clients to analyse their
email marketing campaigns. We believe that
understanding open rates and what affects them does go some
way to helping you improve them.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

4. How are open
rates measured?
You cannot measure 100% accurately the open rate of any email.
This is because of how it is measured. Little pieces of
image code – nothing which the client can see – are inserted
into the newsletter. When this invisible image is called to
be downloaded from our server, we track it as an open.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

5. How are open
rates measured?
By this way of counting, text only email opens will not
register. Even so, this method of measuring the open rate is
standard and does give a fairly accurate picture of
how many people have opened – and therefore
read – your email.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

6. What is a good
open rate?
No-one gets a 100% open rate or even 80% for that matter.
Striving for such numbers when you first start with
email marketing is foolhardy.
Open rates depend on a lot of factors for example;
• How big your list is
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

7. What is a good
open rate?
No-one gets a 100% open rate or even 80% for that matter.
Striving for such numbers when you first start with
email marketing is foolhardy.
Open rates depend on a lot of factors for example;
• How big your list is
• How fresh it is
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

8. What is a good
open rate?
No-one gets a 100% open rate or even 80% for that matter.
Striving for such numbers when you first start with
email marketing is foolhardy.
Open rates depend on a lot of factors for example;
• How big your list is
• How fresh it is
• What the email is about
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

9. What is a good
open rate?
You would tend to get a higher open rate for an newsletter that
came from a small, niche organisation or community group
where the information contained inside is highly
personalised.
As an average – consider a good rate as anywhere
between 20% and 40%.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

10. 1.
How do I improve it?
Subject
Lines
Many people underestimate the power of a subject line.
Research over time suggests that the more boring the
title, the better. Excessive capital letters, use of words like
“sale”, “free”, “new” or expressives like !, % or ? tend
to turn people – and their spam detectors – off.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

11. 2. Provide fresh
multi-media content
Don’t just fill your email newsletter with dry
articles that are
also available on your website. Make an effort to write
new content for the email every time. If you have any
video content or webinar clips you can use then do so.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

12. 3. Try different days and
times to send it and watch
how it affects open rates
For some markets Friday works best, and for others it is
Monday or Thursday. Play around with different days and
times of day to see what works for you.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

13. 4. Test different
layouts and colours
If you have enough people that sign up for your email you can
send out small tests to see which of the two emails people
open more of. You can then use this information to send
the best one to the whole database.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

14. Summary
Understanding and improving open rates should
be a
priority for those keen to use email marketing
as part of a wider marketing drive. At Matizmo, we give you
the tools you’ll need to
understand what is and isn’t
working and where changes can and should be
made.
© 2010 Matizmo Ltd.

15. Matizmo Ltd
Call: +44 (0) 1285 643180
Visit: www.matizmo.co.uk
Email: info@matizmo.co.uk
6–8 Dyer Street
Cirencester
Gloucestershire
GL7 2PF