#71 - 3 ways to get more people to read your emails!

Really, at the end of the day, the people who are always going to open your emails are the people who feel like they have some kind of relationship with you. They feel like they know your brand, they feel like they know what to expect and that you hold up your end of the bargain.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben. Where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hello, hello guys, it is Kate here from HelloFunnels.com and welcome to episode number 71 of the Doing It Online podcast. Today we've got another short and sharp one for you that is just value packed with doable do's so you can go out there and make a few easy tweaks and changes to what you're doing online and hopefully it will help you do it even better. And by doing it better, I mean gonna get you better conversions, better sales, all that good stuff. So what am I talking about? Well, today's episode is all around getting more eyeballs onto your emails. Like if you are already doing the work and creating great content and sending it out there, it's you want to make sure as many people as possible see it. Particularly obviously the right people. And thanks to some updates that are coming through, apparently Apple is making it in that, you know, in their infinite wisdom is making it even more difficult for you to see the stats that you're going to need to be able to see. So it's going to, for, it's going to, it's going to start looking like you're getting lower open rates and click rates and things because part of some of those iOS privacy shenanigans that are going on, they're no longer going to allow some of that tracking. So what that means is basically we just want to make sure that we are putting our best foot forward and we are ticking all the boxes and making sure that you are doing all the things you need to do to get your open rates as high as possible because they are going to look like they're going to have a little bit of a nosedive, even though they possibly aren't. But because those stats are no longer be as reliable as they used to, obviously we want to make sure that they're as good as possible. I mean, we want to make sure they're as good as possible anyway, but even more so with what's coming up. So a couple of really easy tweaks and suggestions for you guys. Some email already be doing, some you may have done a while ago and stopped. Either way, hopefully you get at least one value bomb or aha moment that you can go away and put into place. Tip number one is to use if you can not all systems let you do this, but to make sure that you use emojis and personalizations in your subject line. Now I wouldn't use them all and I wouldn't use them all the time. The whole thing here really is that people will get. If you use the same thing all the time and if you have, you know, like if you always put an emoji or if you always put their name, the that sort of novelty factor of them wears off. So you want to do these things sparingly but something that you do sort of interchange. So maybe one week you have an emoji, the next week you include a personalization. So it shows their name in the subject line. So and by that I mean it might be like hey Kate. Rather than just you know, hey you just having that in the subject line, it just, it's a bit more eye catching. It makes them pay attention to it and therefore more likely to click through and open it using those two alternating and then obviously sometimes not because it is really about the novelty and always making sure that it's, it's new and fresh and doesn't become too formulaic for them. Tip number two is again, it's about mixing it up, but it's about mixing up the types of content that you know what you're actually saying in these subject lines. So having, so sometimes having really, really short and snappy ones, like even two, three words and other ones, maybe a longer subject line and making sure that when you're mixing it up, you're also including some more serious and straightforward, some more abstract and fun and tongue in cheek. And most people find that usually those abstract ones, those kind of random ones that make people go what are they talking about? They're the ones that do get the higher click through rates. But I want to put a caveat on that because a lot of people then kind of go full clickbait and they just start putting these crazy weird headlines in that don't have that much to do with the content. You never want to have a disconnect. So the problem with that is if you do start going too hardcore on that and just everything is about cupcakes and Unicorns, and your content has nothing to do with either of those things is that yes, this may increase your click through rates, but it's probably also. And so by click through rates, when you open rates, it's probably also going to increase the number of people who go, what is they even talking about? Like, I don't remember signing up. This is rubbish. And you know, then they're going to be unsubscribing, they're going to get annoyed that you've tricked them. So you never want to be seeming to be manipulating people or to be promising things that aren't there. It's just about, it's about keeping it fresh and just making sure if you do have some kind of, you know, random hook in your subject line that it then it follows through and it makes sense for that email because otherwise, like I said, you're just going to piss off the people who are reading it. And yes, your open rates may increase, but your unsubscribes will also increase as well. So third one, and this is one of my absolute favorites, and one we do with every single campaign we send, is to do a split test. You should be able to do this. Most email services provide it and if they don't, I would strongly recommend you look at switching. But a split test is simple. You basically come up with two different subject lines and again, you probably have them quite different. So this is where you kind of get to play. So maybe one's a shorter one, one's a longer one, one's more serious, one's a bit more fun, and tongue in cheek, one's got an emoji, one's got someone's name in it. Like just, it allows you to really sort of start to get a feel for what does and doesn't work for your audience. How we normally set hours up is that we send the email out at, you know, about 6:00am to 20% of our list. 10% get subject line A, 10% get subject line B. And then two hours later, and again, feel free to make it a longer period of time. If you've got a small list, you might need to make it a longer period of time because you need enough people to have seen it for it to be statistically significant. But then we go, okay, which one of those subject lines got the best open rate? And then we send the remainder of their list that subject line. And that can make a huge difference because if one is getting a 15% open rate, one's getting a 25% open rate. That's A big difference when it gets sent out to the rest of your list. I really, really, really love split testing. And if you don't do split testing, I highly recommend you do it. And it's simple, like it's part of the setting up your campaign, it's ticking a box, popping another subject line, it adds an extra minute or two your email set up and it makes a huge difference. Final bonus tip is be consistent. So again, you know, these ones might get people opening your emails, you know, more here and there, but really at the end of the day, the people who are always going to open your emails are the people who feel like they have some kind of relationship with you. They feel like they know your brand, they feel like they know what to expect and that you hold up your end of the bargain. So if you say, hey, I'm going to send you a weekly newsletter, you do send them a weekly newsletter. You don't just pop into their inbox when you're promoting something. That consistency, that helps to build trust. And as part of that consistency, it's not just showing up and saying them something random, it's providing value or connection or all of those good things. Be consistent, play with emojis and personalizations, mix it up with short, long, serious and funny and always, always, always when you can split test. And that should help you to make a really big difference with your open rates. And one final little bonus tip is actually, particularly if you're doing split testing, is I would highly recommend at the end of each month, even if you don't do this, even if a VA does it, that someone goes through and looks at all the emails that you sent and pulls out, you know, the top two best performing and the bottom two, like the two worst performing. And you know, make that as part of your monthly reporting, part of what you check in on because you'll start to see a pattern. You might start to see, oh, hey, like every time we use an emoji we get an extra 10% open rate or every time you someone's name or hey, our list really likes shorter headlines. Like, you'll start to see some patterns there and that's going to help you to just get better and better and better. So anyway guys, I hope this has been really useful. If it has, please let us know over on Instagram, hit us up at hellofunnels or please, please share this with someone. Who else in the online space, another, you know, digital nerd who might be thinking, hey, I wouldn't mind having a few more people reading my emails as well. And then make sure you come back next week guys, where we've got another value packed episode for you. Until then, keep doing what you do and we'll see you all online. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing It Online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@stealmyfunnel.com.

Sam.