An open rate of 44.5% and a click rate of 5.7%...is that good?

Uh yeah...it’s good. Industry standards for open rate hover around 24.57% on average, while click rates sit tight at 3.09%. And for reference, it’s almost as good as Connor McDavid’s career faceoff win percentage of 44.7%.

So not only are these numbers good, they probably could have won us a damn Hart Memorial Trophy.

So here’s how we did it:

Subject Line:

“January's Favorite Hockey Tournament Has A New Name 👋”

This subject line boasted a 96% approval rating when we tested it on subjectline.com. We scored points for making this subject line concise and easily scannable, plus we got a few bonus points for throwing in an emoji (which have proven to raise open rates by up to 17% for B2C emails).

Preview Text:

“Hey [First Name]! My name is Stefan from 200x85. I wanted to reach out and invite you to join us for the…”

Utilizing the personalization token was huge because, well, people like to see their name on things. Plus, the sentence “just so happens” to run out of space right before giving away all the details about what we’re inviting them to. Darn, hate when that happens.

Body Copy

Another key to the success of this email here was that it didn’t look and feel like a marketing email. Yes, we sent it through our CRM like every other marketing email, but it looked like a regular old email you’d get from a co-worker in your inbox. Plain text, no flashy images, no ALL CAPS, no nothing. As far as CTA’s go, of course we still used them, but in the form of hyperlinks instead of buttons. This technique makes the reader feel like Stefan reached out to them personally, and who doesn’t want that?

Let’s get one thing straight. Flashy marketing emails with fancy imagery and bold CTA’s absolutely have their place. (In fact, a traditional marketing eblast we sent for this exact same tournament scored a 29% open rate...not a big deal.) But every now and then it’s important to switch things up and take a different approach to email marketing.

Are you looking to step up your email marketing game? Click HERE to get in contact with us and find out how IOI Ventures can help!