Tip of the week 29 - Improving open rates: 3 basic factors

Tip of the week 29 - Improving open rates: 3 basic factors





The most important factors to consider while reviewing your past email campaigns are spam rates, email open rates and unsubscribe rates. This will tell you the engagement of your email campaigns. Here are few steps to improve your open rates. 

 

Note: We have a few tips on reducing spam rates too!

 

1) The list - Keep it fresh.


Not only a paid list, but also failing to clean your existing list once in a while affects open rates. It is important to remove inactive subscribers periodically (i.e., 6 months of inaction = Not Interested). However, before ignoring make sure to send them an email as a last chance to try and get hold of them. Frequent emails (i.e., 3-4 emails per month) with relevant content will help you gain your subscriber's trust and thereby improves open rates. 

 

2) The subject - Keep it engaging.


Subscribers should be able to see the essence of your email content in your subject. Keep your tone conversational and personalize it so that your subject becomes the reason for your emails to enter their inbox. Also, make sure you have a proper pre-header to support the good subject. Pre-header is a preview that appears along with the subject making the subject more engaging. 

 

3) The content - Keep it to the point.


Suppose you receive a brand's email with good content, chances are high that you will expect their future emails. When you've cleaned the list, made the subject engaging but if content lacks quality, then you are probing your subscribers to avoid your future emails. Today's customers and new subscribers expect your content to be casual and to the point. The best way to find out what works with your audience is to test them over a period of time. [Hint:  A/B Testing ]




Now it's your turn to try these out and improve your open rates. Also, let us know the impact it created with your brand in the comments below. 

Best,
Annet Mathews

 



    Access your files securely from anywhere

        All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.






                              Zoho Developer Community




                                                    • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                    • Digest


                                                    • Functions


                                                    • Meetups


                                                    • Kbase


                                                    • Resources


                                                    • Glossary


                                                    • Desk Marketplace


                                                    • MVP Corner


                                                    • Word of the Day


                                                    • Ask the Experts



                                                              • Sticky Posts

                                                              • Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part II

                                                                Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space! We're continuing from where we left off a fortnight ago. We ended the previous post discussing the subject line, and we'll continue from there. Let's dive right in. Pre-header Pre-header
                                                              • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

                                                                Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be
                                                              • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

                                                                In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's
                                                              • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

                                                                Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other
                                                              • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

                                                                In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep


                                                              Manage your brands on social media



                                                                    Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                        Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                          Zoho Books Resources


                                                                            Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                              Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                                Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                  Qntrl Resources


                                                                                    Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                        Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                        • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                          CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                        • Kaizen

                                                                                          Kaizen

                                                                                        • Functions

                                                                                          Functions

                                                                                        • Meetups

                                                                                          Meetups

                                                                                        • Kbase

                                                                                          Kbase

                                                                                        • Resources

                                                                                          Resources

                                                                                        • Digest

                                                                                          Digest

                                                                                        • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                          CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        • MVP Corner

                                                                                          MVP Corner







                                                                                            Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                            Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                            Get Started Now


                                                                                              Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                                Zoho Writer

                                                                                                Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                                Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                  Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                                                                                    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                        ご検討中の方




                                                                                                                • Recent Topics

                                                                                                                • Recording the Investment

                                                                                                                  Hello, - One Investor Invested to our company, So how do we record investment which we received in our bank in the Zoho books ? - How do we record if we provide shares to the investor in the Zoho books? Thanks
                                                                                                                • Export Invoices to XML file

                                                                                                                  Namaste! ZOHO suite of Apps is awesome and we as Partner, would like to use and implement the app´s from the Financial suite like ZOHO Invoice, but, in Portugal, we can only use certified Invoice Software and for this reason, we need to develop/customize on top of ZOHO Invoice to create an XML file with specific information and after this, go to the government and certified the software. As soon as we have for example, ZOHO CRM integrated with ZOHO Invoice up and running, our business opportunities
                                                                                                                • Invoice template with sales tax totals

                                                                                                                  Hi everyone,  I am trying to edit my invoice template so that only the total sales tax collected for my tax group shows up. Right now, under by sub total, each individual tax shows up and that takes up a lot of unnessary space, so I just want the one
                                                                                                                • Client and Vendor portal at the same time

                                                                                                                  We have companies that serve both as clients and vendors and they are linked. However, we have a problem giving them access to the vendor/client portal. If they accept the invitation from the client portal, when we try to invite them to the vendor portal
                                                                                                                • How do you print a refund check to customer?

                                                                                                                  Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does anyone print a refund check to a customer? We cant find anywhere to either just print a check and pick a customer, or where to do so from a credit note.
                                                                                                                • Integrate Multiple ZohoBooks organization with zoho projects

                                                                                                                  We have successfully connected our Zoho Books with Zoho Projects for synronizing timesheet data. Our Business specialty is, that the staff of the Main company (A) is working on several projects, but the Clients are sometimes contracted and paying to a
                                                                                                                • ZOHO CRM Button Integration

                                                                                                                  Hi Team, I’m currently working with Zoho CRM along with a custom application where I fetch deal details from the CRM and use them based on my requirements for each deal. Now, I want to enhance this setup. I plan to create a button on the Deal Detail page
                                                                                                                • Ways to calculate the difference form two years or months

                                                                                                                  Hi to everyone I have this request: I need to show the difference or variation from two periods (years or months) whether using a Pivot View or a graph, in this is case is better in a Pivot view. In the pivot view I will have the amount or results from
                                                                                                                • Zoho CRM strips whitespace in text fields

                                                                                                                  When editing field text with multiple spaces: CRM - both UI and API trim / compress the whitespace to a single space when saving: Is this known / expected / documented behaviour?
                                                                                                                • Career site URL - Suggestion to modify URL of non-english job posting

                                                                                                                  Hi, I would like to suggest making a few modification to career sites that are not in english. Currently, the URL are a mix of different languages and are very long. It makes for very unprofessional looking URLs... Here is an example of one of our URL
                                                                                                                • Uplifted homepage experience

                                                                                                                  Editions: All editions. Availability update: 17th February 2026: All editions in the CA and SA DC | JP DC (Free, Standard and Professional editions) 23 February 2026: JP (All Editions) | AU, CN (Free, Standard, Professional editions) 27 February 2026:
                                                                                                                • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

                                                                                                                  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards
                                                                                                                • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

                                                                                                                  Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan
                                                                                                                • Connection Not Secure (Certificate Mismatch) Error

                                                                                                                  Hi, Just a fyi, when you go to https://bigin.zohocloud.ca/bigin/Home you get a "Your Connection Is Not private" error. (Certificate mismatch to domain.) I get to that page after I have signed up and signed in as a customer and select the Access Bigin
                                                                                                                • Introducing Contract Settings & Backdated Contracts in Zoho Contracts

                                                                                                                  We are rolling out updates that give you more control over how contracts are created and managed in Zoho Contracts. From defining default workflows with Contract Settings to aligning agreements with real timelines using Backdated Contracts, these enhancements
                                                                                                                • Celebrating our customers on International Client's Day

                                                                                                                  Hi everyone, Every customer is part of our Zoho Desk family, and we wouldn’t want to miss celebrating you on this special day. This International Client's Day, we’d like to take a moment to appreciate every customer who has helped us grow and build meaningful
                                                                                                                • Zoho Books | Product updates | February 2026

                                                                                                                  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From Advanced Reporting Tags to the ability to mark projects as completed, explore the latest updates designed to improve your bookkeeping experience. Introducing Advanced Reporting
                                                                                                                • Faster Ticket Response with use of Snippets in comments

                                                                                                                  Hello everyone, Responding to tickets often involves repeating the same messages, whether it is sharing updates with customers or leaving notes for internal collaboration. To make this easier and more consistent, we are allowing agents to use snippets
                                                                                                                • Improving Zoho Creator's email deliverability

                                                                                                                  Hi all, We're pleased to announce updates to email handling in Zoho Creator to improve the deliverability of the emails sent from the Creator platform. These updates have been designed keeping in mind the fact that emails from domains with strong sender
                                                                                                                • What's New in Zoho Billing | February 2026

                                                                                                                  February brings a powerful set of updates to Zoho Billing, from smarter subscription management and flexible payment options to better reporting and more control over your hosted pages. Here's everything that's new this February. Create Subscriptions
                                                                                                                • Introducing Radio Buttons and Numeric Range Sliders in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                                  Release update: Currently out for CN, JP, AU and CA DCs (Free and standard editions). For other DCs, this will be released by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to share with you that Zoho CRM's Layout Editor now includes two new field formats—
                                                                                                                • Reassign Partially Saved Entries

                                                                                                                  Hi, I would like to be able to go to Partially Saved Entries and like the option to delete them I would like the option to multi-select and be able to reassign them to another user to complete (Such as when a user has left the company). Thanks Dan
                                                                                                                • Enhancement to ICR’s field prompting: Preferred data extraction using advanced field prompting

                                                                                                                  Dear Customers, We hope you’re well A quick background Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) comes as part of Zia’s optical recognition capability called Zia Vision. When we introduced it last April, the data extraction was training-based and was applicable
                                                                                                                • Can we rely on order of returned ids when inserting multiple records?

                                                                                                                  Hello! API https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/insert-records.html does not mention that the response array will match the input array*, keeping this important information implicit and someone might have doubts to rely on it. (*the response
                                                                                                                • Displaying only unread tickets in ticket view

                                                                                                                  Hello, I was wondering if someone might be able to help me with this one. We use filters to display our ticket list, typically using a saved filter which displays the tickets which are overdue or due today. What I'd really like is another filter that
                                                                                                                • What is a realistic turnaround time for account review for ZeptoMail?

                                                                                                                  On signing up it said 2-3 business days. I am on business-day 6 and have had zero contact of any kind. No follow-up questions, no approval or decline. Attempts to "leave a message" or use the "Contact Us" form have just vanished without a trace. It still
                                                                                                                • Best Way to Manage Approvals Within Blueprint Stages?

                                                                                                                  Hi, I am working on a requirement involving Blueprint and approval logic in Zoho CRM and would appreciate some guidance. I understand that approval processes do not trigger when a record is currently within a blueprint, which makes it challenging to implement
                                                                                                                • Zoho Books: tax is not automatically pulled from product-data anymore - why?

                                                                                                                  Hi, until a short time ago, you could set a default taxrate for each product/item. This taxrate automatically appeared each time the item was chosen in an invoice or quote. Why does this not work anymore? The field is still there at the product record,
                                                                                                                • Issue creating a YTD report with last years numbers

                                                                                                                  I am looking to create a widget to compare the YTD leads we have in 2023 to the YTD leads we had in 2022. I'm having issues with the aggregate formula creation to gain access to the 2022 Leads YTD data point. Feeling like this is a common view of data
                                                                                                                • Brand Studio Projects in Analytics

                                                                                                                  Hi All, Currently pulling my hair out over trying to link together some social media posts for a reporting dashboard in Analytics, so I thought I'd see if anyone on here had a solution. Our Marketing Team created a LinkedIn campaign in Zoho Brand Studio,
                                                                                                                • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

                                                                                                                  Availability Update: 29 September 2025: It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition exclusively for IN DC users. 2 March 2026: Available to users in all DCs except US and EU DC. Latest
                                                                                                                • Manage Testing Process in Zoho Sprints

                                                                                                                  Agile framework supports a robust quality assurance system that incorporates continuous testing throughout the development lifecycle of the product. The agile testing team focuses on planning the testing around the development, identifying defects early
                                                                                                                • Announcing the Zohotshots of the ZDC Hackathon 2025

                                                                                                                  Hey everyone, The wait is finally over! After weeks of building, experimenting, and pushing creative boundaries, we’re excited to announce the winners of the second edition of the ZDC Hackathon. This edition brought together an incredible community of
                                                                                                                • Major journey crash and not loading. Zoho Marketing Automation

                                                                                                                  Hi all. Last night (19MAR, 2026) Marketing Automation for a specific journey completely crashed, and since the crash the specific journey has failed to load at all (blank journey canvas, no journey appears, no menu accessible) but other separate journey's
                                                                                                                • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

                                                                                                                  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files
                                                                                                                • Dynamic image in form works in the app but not on the customer portal.

                                                                                                                  img = frm_Fichas[ID == input.Nombre].Foto; imgno = Nophoto[ID2 = 1].Image; if(len(img) > 1) { img = img.replaceAll("/sharedBy/appLinkName/",zoho.appuri); img = img.replaceAll("viewLinkName","Fichas_de_personal_public"); img = img.replaceAll("fieldName","Foto");
                                                                                                                • Candidate Assessments, no workflows.

                                                                                                                  I have an issue where I would like to trigger a workflow based on a candidate assessment being completed. Sometimes a returning candidate will complete a second assessment, on completion the status of the candidate will be updated to "Unqualified" if
                                                                                                                • Mail Merge in Zoho Desk

                                                                                                                  Hello Team, Do we have an option of mail merge within Zoho Desk like we have in Zoho CRM? We have a requirement to generate some pdf file in the form of mail merge doc from the ticket.
                                                                                                                • Workdrive backup and default storage selection

                                                                                                                  Hi community, I have been informed by Zoho that workdrive will be the default storage mechanism for crm and projects. These 2 Apps seem to have different design on how they interact with workdrive for storage. 1. Crm: seems to have files saves at the
                                                                                                                • Sync your CRM Tasks with Zoho Projects

                                                                                                                  Zoho Projects integration with Zoho CRM helps you manage your tasks more efficiently. You can create all project related activities right inside your CRM using this integration. Create new portal or associate an existing portal, add projects to the portal,
                                                                                                                • Next Page