How to Increase Email Open Rates with H2H Subject Lines | Literal Humans

How to Increase Email Open Rates with H2H Subject Lines | Literal Humans

The average email open rate across industries is 19.66% in 2022. If your open rates are low, it's probably for one of two reasons: subscribers don't want to hear from you or you're not framing your subject lines to show what's in it for them.

Before people open your email, they want to know that it's written for them. The job of the email subject line is to make the reader know they want to see the email. People don't care about you or your product, and if you focus on yourself, you lose them.

In 2020, a team of researchers examined how messaging affected solar adoption in 29 different cities. They found that people were twice as likely to adopt solar power when the message focused on personal gain for the adopter rather than social responsibility. This study highlights the importance of framing your subject lines to appeal to the reader's self-interest.

Research shows that the brain releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical, as a reward for satisfying our curiosity. So once we encounter a knowledge gap or something else we don't know, we want to figure it out. Use headlines that cater to at least one of the five dimensions of curiosity: deprivation sensitivity, joyous exploration, social curiosity, stress tolerance, and thrill-seeking.

In a study, GetResponse found that triggered emails performed almost twice better than newsletters. Open rates for triggered emails reached 35.64%, while newsletter open rates sat at 20.58%. This suggests that sending targeted and timely emails based on specific triggers can significantly improve your open rates.

When it comes to personalization, it's important to go beyond just adding a first name tag to your subject line. The GetResponse study found that as of 2022, open rates were actually lower when subject lines included this form of personalization. Instead, focus on specificity. Set an expectation and allow readers to picture a clear outcome. For example, subject lines with the word "now" scored an open rate of 31.73%.

It's also crucial to optimize your subject lines for mobile devices. Most people open emails on their mobile phones, and the average subject line is 44 characters long. However, mobile phones can only accommodate around 33 characters in the field of view. Keep your subject lines concise and to the point to ensure they are fully visible on mobile screens.

Now that we've covered strategies for improving email open rates, let's shift our focus to the concept of Founder-Market Fit. Founder-Market Fit means that as a founder, you would choose to work on your idea in your free time. It's when you can effortlessly work on your product and customer issues without noticing the time passing.

One sign of this healthy obsession is knowledge. Founders should talk to 10-30 practitioners and experts who have done something related to what they are targeting. By creating an extensive competitive map and studying everything online about competing companies, founders can build a deeper understanding of their market quickly. Lack of obsession and knowledge of the market is almost always a bad sign.

Customers care a lot more about who the company founder is than most founders realize. The founder has to fit with the market, i.e., the customer, and vice versa. Markets tend to attract people with similar personalities. It's important to ask yourself if you have the kind of personality that can fit in and make connections with your peers in your market. Having a network of peers who can bring positive energy, practical advice, and constructive feedback is essential for success.

Experience is often overrated when it comes to Founder-Market Fit. Too much experience is not always a good thing, as it can limit your ability to see fresh or new ways of doing things. The type of business you're building also plays a role. Experience is more important in the B2B space, where the complexity of the industry requires a deep understanding. However, with founders, we look for speed, grit, intelligence, and Founder-Market Fit.

In conclusion, increasing email open rates requires framing subject lines to show what's in it for the reader and appealing to their self-interest. Triggered emails perform better than newsletters, and specificity in subject lines is key. Optimizing for mobile devices is crucial in today's mobile-first world. Additionally, Founder-Market Fit is essential for success. Founders should have a healthy obsession and knowledge of their market, fit with the market and customers, and build a network of peers for support and feedback. Experience is not always necessary, but traits like speed, grit, and intelligence are important.