On today’s podcast episode, I want to share a story with you. I feel like this is an important one to share because I don’t feel like a lot of people talk about this topic when it comes to email marketing. When you’re building your email list, weird things can happen. I remember feeling so alone when this happened to me, and I don’t want anyone else to feel alone! Here’s what happened: I started my email list back in 2019. I really focused on building it along with my products during that year. In 2020, I began to get more serious about monetizing my email list. My list was about 3,000-4,000 people and I was really proud of that. I had a freebie running that featured Instagram highlight cover templates. It quickly picked up and I gained traction… but my open rates on my email list tanked to less than 1%. That was huge for me, considering that up until that point, my rates were really good – usually between 20 and 30%. But, 1% (or less than it sometimes!) means that something is wrong. At the time, none of my mentors or even the email marketing software I was using were any help. None of them had any idea what to do or what was going on.
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Why My Email Open Rates Dropped
Knowing what I know now about email marketing, it’s clear to see what happened: the people subscribing to my email list weren’t real people at all. The emails were very real, but the people weren’t. Instead, bots were opting into my list and tanking my open rates. It meant that while I was gaining some traction on the freebie, it wasn’t actually as much as I originally thought. But, at the time I didn’t have precautions in place and I wasn’t tracking enough on my email list to figure out what was happening sooner.
The bots figured out I didn’t have a double opt in turned on for my email list. So, they subscribed very real people’s emails to my list without their permission. The bots were basically trying to fill up people’s emails with so much junk that they could get in and hack them. That meant that people – thousands of people – were marking my emails as spam. Marking those emails as spam triggered other email inboxes, like Google and Yahoo to also mark my emails as spam. So, my deliverability tanked and my open rate right alongside it. It was absolutely insane.
I didn’t really know a lot about email marketing at the time. I had my list and the basics, but no idea about what to do. Once I figured out about the double opt in, I definitely went in and changed that so people could confirm they wanted to be there. But, my email list that was currently being marked as spam was still an issue.
How to Improve Email Open Rates
I want to share what I did once I figured out what was going on. Not only because I remember how hard it was in that moment to figure this out, but also as encouragement for you. If something like this happens to you, you can improve deliverability and continue to have a healthy email list. I promise! And if it’s never happened to you, I hope you’ll keep these tips in mind as precautions. So, here’s what I did to get my email open rates back up.
Moving Email Marketing Platforms
At the time, it was important to me to be able to get my email open rates back up. I was getting ready to launch a course a few months later, so I needed to be able to rely on my email list. The first thing I did was switch email marketing platforms. I was not happy with the way they refused to help me. So, I left and went to Flodesk (get 50% off your first year here!). I absolutely love it! It’s so easy to use and I love the designs. I also tweaked the email address that my list was being sent emails from. At the time it was something like list @stephaniekase.com but now, it’s my main email. To get started on Flodesk, I exported my contacts from the old site and put them into Flodesk. In that process, I also scrubbed my email list – which means I got rid of any inactive subscribers. I was pretty drastic with my scrubbing, which I don’t necessarily recommend but I knew I had to be. So, I sent an email out telling people I was on a new list and if they didn’t want to be there, reply or unsubscribe. I also got rid of anyone who hadn’t been active on my list (clicking a link, opening the emails) for the last 3 months.
Double Opt Ins
So, my email list dropped from 7K to 3K after that, but it was necessary. I needed to be sure whoever was left on my list actually wanted to receive my content. Between moving platforms and scrubbing my list, my open rate went up to 7%, which was a great increase! When I moved my freebies over to Flodesk, I also ensured that each had a double opt in turned on. It was helpful to make sure anyone joining the rest of the year was legit. I will say that I don’t have them on now, but we monitor my email list really closely so I’d be able to quickly see what’s going on – which I was not doing before.
White Listing and Avoiding Spammy Words
When I moved my freebie workflows to Flodesk, one of the updates I made was to encourage subscribers to “white list” me in their first delivery email. Basically, that means that they’re adding me to their contacts. This helps make me a legit person in the eyes of Google or other email companies. I still use this strategy today! In fact, our new course Inbox to Income (launching Oct. 2nd!) will have a template for this very step! The other thing I was very cautious about was using “spammy” words in my subject lines. Just go to Google and search for the words that you want to avoid. I made sure to avoid some of those words for the rest of year and try to still be cautious about word choice – especially in my subject lines.
Tracking Email Stats
Another thing I did was tracking my email stats and keeping a close eye on them. I talk about this more in depth in Inbox to Income (coming Oct 2nd!), but it’s important to know what’s going on with your list. On an (at least) monthly basis, I check in on open rates, deliverability, click rates, list growth, and a few other metrics. It’s helpful to keep my eyes on it and watch to see if anything is changing in a way I don’t want.
After implementing all these things, literally within about one month, my average open rate went back up to around 20%. And nowadays, our average open rates are at 39.2% across the board, which is a very good open rate that I’m super proud of! So, I want to encourage you that if something like this happens to you and you just feel doomed, know that there’s ways to improve things! Email lists are so important to sales. I make most of my sales because of my email list – and so it’s really important to have an active and healthy email list! Remember, people join your list because they expect to be sold to!
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