The chief strategist of INBOX Marketing, Inc. shares proven best practices for boosting open rates.

Need a quick win in 2006? Boost your email open rates!

I have concluded -- after having reviewed more than 500 unique email deliverables in 2005 for clients, agencies and channel partners -- that few marketers understand what it takes to get an email opened.

So here are my top 10 expert recommendations for higher open rates:

1. Use your company or brand name in the "from" line, which tells recipients that you sent the email. From lines help people evaluate which emails to open, which to delete and which to complain about. Our “from address” testing shows that open rates and clickthrough rates increase when the “from” name, “from” address and “subject line” are appropriately branded from your company. Our testing also shows that these practices reduce SPAM complaints.

Also use your company and brand name in your "from" and "reply to" address (see examples, below). A quality email service provider like Responsys, EmailLabs or ExactTarget should give you a choice of how you display your “from” and “reply-to” address. For example:

(BEST) Option 1: West [westlaw@west.thomson.com]
(GOOD) Option 2: West [reply-60868@updates.thomson.com]
(WORST) Option 3: reply-60868@updates.thomson.com

2. Take the time to write a great subject line. If you pick a great one, your email open rates can soar. Make it a priority. Too many marketers wait until the last minute to craft their subject lines. You don’t want to be out of luck in today’s competitive marketplaces. Here are some suggestions:

• Use your company or brand name in subject lines. Adding your company or brand name is good for branding and immediate credibility and often increases unique open rates by five percent or more. For example, replace “Drug Delivery Solution” with “Dow Corning: Drug Delivery Solutions”. The former reads like SPAM. The latter is clear that this email originates from a credible source. Which one would you more likely open?
• Write a brief subject line (six words or less is ideal) -- Most email clients cut off subject lines beyond 50 characters (including spaces). Shorter is better.
• Subject lines should contain actionable information that accurately represents the message’s major content. One way to accomplish this is to include the email’s header or title. If your email doesn’t have a title, then include your company, division or brand name in the "subject" line.
• Break subject lines into sections by using colons and subtitles. For example, instead of “philosophy shower gels on sale until Oct. 10,” use “philosophy: shower gels (sale expires 10/10).”
• Check CTR statistics from email campaigns or keyword search results on your website before writing a subject line. Use the most popular keywords in your subject line.
• Never falsify the subject line -- it is illegal. Avoid using “RE” or “FW” in the subject line as you will not be in compliance with the Federal CAN-SPAM Act.
• Test to see how subject lines are displayed in different email clients before sending. Your subject line may look different in the different AOL versions; plus Hotmail, Outlook and Express.
  

3. Design a plain text email version for AOL users and other subscribers who can’t view HTML emails. Even if only five percent of your subscribers prefer text, it’s worth the effort. Here are some suggestions for creating text-only emails:

• Use copious amounts of white space between and around copy blocks. It helps the reader focus.
• Use a fixed-space typeface such as 10-point Courier or Courier New.
• Limit yourself to 75 to 100 words. Keep content simple, direct and focused on one main offer in short statements and bulleted text.
• Limit your line length to 60 characters to prevent wrapping. Use text size 10 to12. Auto-wrap lines at 60 characters per line (recommended for delivery to AOL users). Some email programs will not properly wrap lines. If you use more than 60 characters, the recipient might see = (the equal character) at the end of each line or an =20 for a hard return. Enter hard returns at the end of each line because line-wrapping will not be respected by many email clients. Non-text components, like lines created with the “-“ or “=” symbols, should be restricted to 50 characters just to ensure they don’t wrap unexpectedly. (This rule can be broken in the interest of time by simply letting text lines wrap naturally.)
• Don’t attempt to create boxes with characters like “-“ and “|”. The box may get broken up and the alignment thrown off. Instead, use these characters to create lines or sections within an email.
• Use dashes and asterisks as separators for different sections of the message.
• Each URL should be on its own line with any additional text below. For example:

To learn more about INBOX Marketing, go to:
http://www.inboxmarketinginc.com/

This will allow your subscriber to clearly distinguish the link from surrounding text, and it will reduce the chances that the URL will be broken into parts when an email client attempts to wrap text.

• Keep untracked URLs short. If you want to include a long untracked URL, consider creating a shorter "alias" on your web server directing hits to the longer address, and use the alias in your mailing.

Go to page 2 for tips four through 10.