DEEP DIVE

10 ways to boost your email open rate

Here’s how to get more subscribers to open and read your newsletter:

1) Clean your email list

Removing inactive subscribers from your list is the fastest way to increase your open rate and improve deliverability.

Clean your list automatically or manually every month.

Here’s my guide on how to clean your list and win back subscribers.

2) Use email deliverability best practices

• Use GlockApps to monitor your deliverability performance.

• Use KickBox or NeverBounce to verify new emails before adding them to your list.

• Check your IP address and sending domain for blacklist placements using this tool.

• Remove unnecessary images from your emails and compress images using TinyPNG.

• If you send over 1M emails per month, get a dedicated IP address so that other senders can’t ruin your email reputation.

• Use a custom sending domain, set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, and make sure they validate properly using this tool.

• Remove hard bounces, spam reporters, and invalid emails from your list. Don’t let past hard bounces and spam reporters back on your list.

Need help with deliverability?

• Read this email deliverability guide.

• Get on the wait list for our email deliverability support service at GrowLetter here » 

3) Setup a profile picture for Gmail

If you set up a custom sender profile picture for Gmail, your emails will stand out from marketing emails and other newsletters in the inbox.

Here’s how.

4) Improve your subject lines and preview text

Mr. Beast spends up to $10,000 per thumbnail. He knows how important getting the click is.

Yet some newsletter operators spend 2 minutes on their subject line and call it a day. Huge mistake.

The best newsletter in the world doesn't matter if it doesn't get opened.

Always split-test your subject lines using beehiiv. It’s an easy way to increase your open rate by 2%-5%.

Then, learn how to write killer subject lines here.

5) Create a great thank you page

Your landing page's job is to sell people on subscribing to your newsletter, and your thank you page's job is to sell people on opening and reading your newsletter.

Don’t overlook your thank you page. And make sure you’re actually using one!

Read my thank you page guide here.

6) Ask subscribers to take 3 actions in your welcome email

If you can get new subscribers to take these 3 actions:

• Move email to primary inbox

• Reply to the email

• Click a link

Your future emails will land in the primary inbox and be opened at much higher rates.

Here’s how to structure your welcome email (see part #3)

7) Change and improve your newsletter design and format

Let’s face it: Your newsletter is probably ugly.

A new look and feel will get readers excited to open — even if the content is exactly the same.

Here’s how to design a newsletter readers love (plus a free template you can steal).

8) Stop getting subscribers from sources that lead to low open and low click rates

Monitor your open rate, CTR, unsubscribe rate, and purchases by source. If a source is getting significantly lower results than others, don’t use it.

I’ve seen many newsletter operators kill their engagement by buying cheap subscribers from sources like paid recommendations and co-reg.

Not all subscribers are created equal!

Remember that CTR is more important than open rate. Apple Mail Privacy Protection automates most opens.

Often, these cheap growth sources can have a deceptively high open rate and an abysmal click-through rate. People mistake the open rate for engagement. However, most of those opens are automated.

9) Try sending on a different day or different time

Email service providers have found significant differences in open rates based on send days and times.

For example, beehiiv found emails had the best engagement on:

• Sunday

• Monday

• Wednesday

• Thursday

And, the best times to send are:

• 5 AM EST - 44.5% open rate

• 6 AM EST - 42.4% open rate

• 8 AM EST - 41.5% open rate

• 9 AM EST - 41.2% open rate

Try changing your send day and time to one of the most optimal times above.

10) Create different and better content

I’ve saved the most important thing for last.

Content is everything. None of the other stuff in this post matters if readers don’t love your content.

Here’s how to improve it:

• Beg for feedback

Written feedback from readers is the only way to find content-market fit.

• Every newsletter should have a poll

• Every newsletter should ask readers to reply

• Send a survey with 5-10 multiple-choice questions monthly

• Set up a call with readers who reply and respond to surveys

Open rate and CTR data are not enough to understand what readers think about your content. You must get feedback through polls, replies, surveys, and calls — then implement their feedback in your writing.

A simple way to do this is to ask readers what they need help with. Then, write a newsletter in response to that reader's question or problem.

• Don’t just write a newsletter

Publish content on social media daily. The feedback loop is much faster.

By publishing daily on Twitter and/or LinkedIn for a few months, you’ll quickly see what type of contact people care about and respond to.

This allows you to get ideas out quickly, then later refined them in your newsletter.

• Define your newsletter’s “Job To Be Done”

A newsletter, at its core, helps the reader solve a problem.

If you don’t know what problem you're solving for readers, use the “Job’s To Be Done” framework.

Here’s what this means…

You can bucket every great newsletter into the “job” it’s doing for people.

For example:

• Help me save money on flights: Going

• Help me become a better dad: Daily Dad

• Help me build better habits: James Clear

• Make me smarter about crypto: Milk Road

• Keep me informed with just the facts: 1440

• Help me expand my vocabulary: Word Daily

• Inspire me and help me be positive: Nice News

• Keep me up to date on tech in 5 minutes: TDLR

• Help me get a job on Wall Street: Wall Street Oasis

• Help me win more at fantasy football: Football guys

• Help me use AI to become productive: Superhuman

My newsletter’s job-to-be-done is to help you grow and monetize your newsletter. To share news, insights, and tactics on how you can do that.

If I can do this job for you consistently, you’ll keep reading.

When starting a newsletter, your goal should be to find one “job to be done” that you can do better than anyone else.

You don’t need to be the best in the world right now. But strive to be.

Find your “Job To Be Done” by answering 2 questions:

1. Who exactly are you writing for? Think of a specific person. What would they find extremely useful or interesting?

2. What is the concrete job you’re doing for them? Be specific. How exactly will you help them fulfill their desires, reach their goals, and solve their problems?

Here are a few tips to better answer these questions:

Tip #1: Think about one person.

Seriously, just one. That could be a friend, client, employee, reader you know, or even your past self.

This will make the content personal. Personal content helps you solve that person’s specific problem.

And what is most personal is most universal.

Tip #2: Don’t be vague.

Your job to be done should be specific, tangible, and concrete.

That job should be something people would pay for (even though your newsletter will be free).

If your job to be done is:

• Help me become smarter

• Make me happier

• Entertain me

• Inform me

It’s too vague!

Think about how you’ve helped people in real life — like with your work or in your personal life.

• Is there something you can do better than anyone else?

• Or is there something you’re obsessed with more than anyone else?

For most folks, that “thing,” that “job” will be small. That’s okay! Think small. Being niche makes it easy to demonstrate exactly how you help readers.

You can always expand or broaden your job and niche later.

• Pick a niche or narrow your niche

By narrowing down who your content is for, you stand out more.

Most newsletters fail because they try to be everything to everyone. Inevitably, they end up nothing to no one.

There are so many newsletters about “business”, “tech”, “sports”, “politics”, “fitness”, "health"” etc.

Your newsletter will likely fall into one of these categories. But it needs to be at least 2 niches “deeper” to stand out!

For example:

• Fitness → Bodybuilding → How to bodybuild on a keto diet

• Tech → AI → AI for marketing → How to use generative AI to make ads

• Local news → Things to do in your city → Restaurants and food in your city

After niching down 1-3 more levels, you can find a topic in which you’re a world-class expert.

If you’re not an expert yet, that’s ok. Pick a niche you're obsessed with.

Something you could see yourself writing about for 10 years.

Over time, you will become an expert, and your content will improve.