1 Weird Trick to Increase Email Engagement

Are you struggling to get an extra 10% open and 1% click on your emails every week? Well, this trick may be for you. I’ve personally used this tip with great success over the years at my various marketing jobs and it hasn’t failed me yet…so, what is the tip you may ask? Drum roll please……

Cue the suspense….

The re-send! That’s right, sending the same email to the same audience often can garner an extra 10% open rate and 1% click. Now I realize this may sound crazy, but it really does work.

It’s worth mentioning that a proper re-send is a bit more complex than simply re-sending the previous email to the same audience. In order for your re-send to garner additional engagement, we recommend the following:

1. Set your audience

   Don’t send the re-send to everyone. Instead, send them only to ‘non-openers’ of your first email. Most marketing automation programs have options for you to segment openers vs. non-openers for email sends so this should (theoretically) be an easy task.

2. Change your subject line

   The second step is to simply change the subject line. Most people wouldn’t bother opening an email they didn’t open originally if it had the same subject line. In fact, this could provide them with a reminder to unsubscribe (which we don’t want!). When choosing a subject line for your re-send, we like to get a little more aggressive this time around vs. the original send. Don’t be afraid to get a little more abstract (but staying within the guidelines of CAN-SPAM). You’ll be surprised how well a “did you know?” or “did you miss this?” can perform if used properly. Don’t forget to add a quick line referencing the previous email if you use the ‘did you miss this?’ subject line so the prospect connects the dots.

3. Switch up the time

   We all assume the worst sometimes when it comes to email. Like for instance, they didn’t open it because they have no interest in my content. When in fact, more often times than not, you may have just caught them at a bad time. Say dropping 3 kid off at school while attempting to keep your sanity in the process. Chances are, email is the last thing on that person’s mind. So, keeping this in mind, sending re-send at the same time may not make sense as people’s routines, in general, don’t change much. We recommend switching up the time you send your re-send for this very reason. And don’t be afraid to get wild and try the weekends. You’ll never know when your audience is consuming content until you start testing!

4. Pick your spots

   Aka don’t get greedy. Sure, we’d all love to add 10% open and 1% click to every email campaign we send out, but this can seriously aggravate your audience with multiple sends in a short amount of time. Think of this like a power move in a video game…something you use strategically, but needs time to charge up once used. That being said, we tend to use our re-sends for our most important emails—generally, ones that are pushing a content offer. For example, if you just launched a brand new eBook and are pushing it to your email list, line-up a re-send to maximize the number of downloads for your initial email campaign in a short amount of time. Once you get a feel for the timing, feel free to work re-sends into your automated workflows as well. We set these up at strategic email engagements in our client’s automated email flows all the time. It’s great to squeeze that extra little engagement out of the flow, which adds up in a significant way over a long period of time.

So there you have it…1 weird trick to improve your email open and click rates! As we stated above, if you take the time to set your re-sends up properly, this can be a great little trick to increase your email engagement rates with minimal effort.

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Written by Ian

Ian has marketed for some of the world's best-known brands like Hewlett-Packard, Ryder, Force Factor, and CIT Bank. His content has been downloaded 50,000+ times and viewed by over 90% of the Fortune 500. His marketing has been featured in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Adweek, Business Insider, Seeking Alpha, Tech Crunch, Y Combinator, and Lifehacker. With over 10 startups under his belt, Ian's been described as a serial entrepreneur— a badge he wears with pride. Ian's a published author and musician and when he's not obsessively testing the next marketing idea, he can be found hanging out with family and friends north of Boston.