The Keys to 50% Email Response Rates

BY Rachel Cagle
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How many business emails do you send out a day? A handful? Dozens? Next question: how many of those do you actually get a response to? If you just experienced a sinking feeling in your chest, you’re not alone. Many salespeople struggle with this problem on a daily basis. So, Boomerang conducted a study to find out what you can do to actively improve your open rates. Here are some findings from Boomerang’s article, “7 Tips for Getting More Responses to Your Emails (With Data!).”

Subject Lines

This is the first thing your potential readers see. What determines if they’ll open your email or not? Subject lines with only three to four words have a 48% response rate, according to Boomerang. As words are added or taken, that percentage drops. However, the numbers drop more slowly when words are added compared to when they’re taken away. So, keep your subject lines to-the-point!

Content Length

The importance of concise writing doesn’t stop at the subject line. Boomerang found that the most effective emails are 50 to 125 words long. At least half of these emails are regularly responded to. However, if you just can’t squeeze all the important details into such a limited word count, you can add more without too much guilt. The response percentage decreases by only about 1% for each additional 25 words.

Wording

Your college or university may have thought they were aiding your future email outreach by improving your reading and writing level. However, according to Boomerang, only 39% of emails with college reading level content get responded to. Surprisingly, it’s not even high school reading level emails that get the most responses. Apparently the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) applies to more than just how you go about writing your emails. Boomerang says that 53% of emails written at the 3rd grade reading get responses. So, don’t just keep your subject lines and emails short. Make sure your words and sentences are short as well.

Use these tips to increase your response rates from your prospects and clients!


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