At the moment, we wish to share a case examine of how we doubled the open fee (OR) and reached a mean OR of 30% for all sorts of emails that we ship out to our subscribers. Learn the way practical that is and what steps assist a SaaS product obtain such outcomes by studying the case examine.
I’m Oleksandr. I’ve been an e-mail and digital marketer at Stripo for two.5 years. As all emails from our model are created by me, I want to take this chance to thank everybody who reads them and supplies suggestions. You’re the finest.
State of affairs: All the things is ok, however may very well be even higher
Stripo is an e-mail design platform. In our e-mail newsletters, we replace subscribers about new product releases, share e-mail advertising and marketing information, and compile digests of useful weblog posts.
Now, we’ve got greater than 130,000 subscribers in whole. Our database consists of contacts—customers of our product (the paid or free plans)—and people who subscribed to the publication to obtain priceless data by our weblog and firm information.
In 2021, our publication’s common OR was 12–15%. This can be a typical indicator for our area of interest, however we wanted extra. So, initially of 2022, we determined to take steps to enhance the state of affairs and improve the OR to twenty–25%.
Initially, the symptoms had been as follows:
7 steps we took to make clients wish to open our emails
The OR is an e-mail advertising and marketing metric that reveals the proportion fee of emails opened amongst all delivered messages. Curiosity within the e-mail topic and confidence within the sender have an effect on the worth of the OR generally.
Listed below are the steps we determined to take to enhance our OR:
Step 1. Totally different codecs
Sending content material of the identical sort is a direct path to oblivion. You threat turning into uninteresting to subscribers.
Subsequently, we determined so as to add new content material classes to make our e-mail newsletters extra numerous. Beforehand, we solely despatched emails sharing our new templates, new releases, product modifications, and generally new articles. Now, we’ve got launched a brand new content material rubric.
One in every of these is the weekly thematic digest, during which we compile priceless supplies on a single matter. For instance, suggestions for getting ready emails for the New 12 months holidays—from topic traces to e-mail content material.
Topic line: Ho-ho-ho, it’s the Christmas Digest 🎄
(Supply: Stripo e-mail publication)
Along with distributing weblog content material, we started creating extra content material for newsletters, which we had not performed earlier than. To know what subjects are of curiosity to our subscribers, we performed a survey during which we requested recipients to reply a number of questions on the kind of content material they want to obtain in these emails. We added new concepts to the content material plan thanks to those responses.
Emails have thus turn out to be numerous in format and size. We now create brief emails, with just one button and CTA, in addition to fairly lengthy informative emails.
Step 2. Identification by sender names
It’s higher for the OR to make use of totally different sender names for various e-mail teams. Subsequently, we divided the e-mail addresses into conditional teams and created a sender identify for every group.
For instance, emails about new product releases, promotions, and particular affords come from the Stripo Staff, whereas advertising and marketing digests come from Stripo Weekly. For emails from assist, we created private addresses, akin to Kyril from Stripo. On this manner, subscribers instantly see the model identify, however on the similar time, they perceive who precisely the e-mail is from and what to anticipate from it.
Some emails are despatched from the CEO, whereas others may be despatched from somebody from the staff. In these instances, we use that particular person’s signature. On this manner, we personalize not solely our emails but additionally the sender.
Step 3. Focused work with segments
I create e-mail templates in Stripo, export them to Yespo, and ship them to totally different segments of contacts. For segmentation, Yespo has an unimaginable RFM software that analyzes subscriber exercise: segments are created by the variety of emails opened and the final time they had been opened.
Now we have created segments of contacts who didn’t open any emails, who opened emails a very long time in the past, and who open the emails recurrently.
That is how I take advantage of these segments:
- to essentially the most energetic readers, I ship all our emails;
- to those that learn them sooner or later however stopped studying them, I ship them emails about improvements, such because the creation of a signature generator in Stripo;
- to those that don’t learn our emails typically, I ship fewer emails—largely digests—to arouse curiosity within the matter;
- e-mail addresses which have an error are misplaced contacts, so I take away them from the database in order that they don’t have a detrimental impact on the metrics and the stats turn out to be clearer;
- those that haven’t opened our emails for the final 3 months (dynamic section), I exclude them from the final database and ship them solely particular emails.
Step 4. Up to date e-mail design
In 2022, we redesigned the Stripo web site, and it was logical to replace the design of our e-mail publication. As well as, our e-mail editor is creating on a regular basis, so we determined to get essentially the most out of its new options.
Under, you possibly can see some examples of previous and new variations of our emails.
We modified the fonts, the form of the buttons and labored on the construction. Emails have additionally turn out to be extra accessible and readable. And, as we’ve got already talked about, we made new templates for brand new e-mail codecs: digests.
When redesigning the emails, the designers made essentially the most ceaselessly used parts, which I saved as modules in my private Module library within the Stripo editor. Subsequently, I don’t must contact the designer to create every e-mail now. I make all the next emails simply and shortly utilizing Stripo’s modular structure.
Altering the design impacts the OR in the long term. In fact, customers can’t see the modifications in e-mail design earlier than they open the e-mail, however as soon as they do and see that the e-mail is structured and formatted, they may wish to open your subsequent emails.
Start to create accessible and readable emails with Stripo
Step 5. Private e-mail signature
In digests and promotional emails, we started to make use of a private signature. This permits me to speak with subscribers like a fellow e-mail marketer who shares thrilling advertising and marketing information and priceless instruments and assets.
The tone of voice of our emails has modified, too: it has turn out to be friendlier. For instance, as an alternative of “we advocate,” I say, “I discovered some cool stuff for you.”
For vacation digests, the identical signature is used, though it’s barely custom-made to the theme. For instance, a witch’s hat was added for Halloween and a Santa’s hat for Christmas. So even with one signature, you possibly can create totally different variations by making minimal modifications.
Step 6. A/B testing of the perfect ship time and topic line
The topic line and e-mail ship time are key parameters that straight have an effect on the OR. Subsequently, I made a decision to do A/B testing for them.
Our subscribers reside in several international locations and time zones, so the perfect ship time for the US and Europe will differ. The simplest for the American viewers was the morning hours earlier than the beginning of the working day and the center of the day—more than likely, the lunch break.
Subsequently, when you have an viewers that’s unfold over many international locations as we do, ideally, you’ll use the Sensible Ship choice, which is on the market in some ESPs.
Within the topic line, I examined totally different codecs:
- query;
- affirmative sentence;
- the usage of emojis.
The simplest for us had been topics that intrigued, had been phrased as open questions or humorous headlines, and promised a solution to a query that the readers had been undoubtedly excited about. For instance, “suggestions and methods on how you can improve the open fee” will work higher as a topic line than simply “open fee in e-mail advertising and marketing.”
By the best way, to make A/B testing simple, you possibly can shortly export emails from Stripo to greater than 75 ESPs.
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Step 7. The resend trick
After sending an vital or thrilling e-mail, I group all of the subscribers who’ve but to open it in a separate checklist, and after 2 days, I ship them the identical e-mail with a unique topic line. It will develop your OR. Nevertheless, it’s best to not overuse this methodology in order that your emails don’t go to spam.
Outcomes
Stripo’s performance helped me scale back the time I spent creating emails and allowed me to spend extra time on advertising and marketing experiments.
Since June 2022, we’ve got achieved and are sustaining the next ends in e-mail advertising and marketing:
- The OR has doubled and now averages 27–34%. On the similar time, the OR is 29% for digests, 33.6% for promo emails, and 60–70% for webinars.
- Site visitors to the positioning from e-mail newsletters additionally elevated by 10% when evaluating the previous e-mail advertising and marketing technique with the brand new one. As well as, we obtained 225 registrations for the paid model of our product from new e-mail subscribers.
Necessary conclusions
Our experiment proves that e-mail advertising and marketing works in a fancy method and that one ought to take a long-term strategy to rising the OR. When subscribers open our emails and see that they include numerous fascinating data that’s priceless to them, they may open future newsletters extra typically.
E-mail advertising and marketing is a protracted recreation, so don’t count on immediate outcomes. You will have to ship not less than 4–5 emails earlier than you see any enhancements in your campaigns’ efficiency, and it takes round 6 months for these enhancements to turn out to be evident and noticeable.
Concentrate on finest practices, implement them, and see the outcomes.
This use case was coauthored with Alina Samulska-Kholina, a copywriter at Stripo.
To have time for advertising and marketing experiments and never get slowed down in a routine, use the Stripo e-mail builder