Many faith-based marketers are asking, “How can I increase my email response? How can I get more people to read my email newsletters?

We’ve all done it; deleted an email without even skimming over it! It’s a great trick to clearing out your inbox, but you can also miss some great information!

When you’re the one sending those emails, it’s a blow to your efforts to have your hard work sent right to the digital trash bin.

What’s an “un-open”?
This is when an email is received by a member of your audience and deleted or left unopened with out being read. Most email list services like Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. provide you with the results of your sends, including opens, clicks, and other stats for your email newsletters or direct email advertisements. One of those statistics is the “unopens”.

Unopens are the list of email addresses who did not open your email.  For the folks who opened your email, you don’t want to hit them again with the same message, but for these unopens, you can resend to that audience.  Statistically, if your initial open rate is 20-30% on your first attempt to your audience, a resend to only the unopens could boost your numbers by an extra 5-10%, bringing your grand total to 25-40%!

What to do after you get your initial results:
Wait at least 48 hours and up to one week or two weeks after your initial send, depending on how often you send out those emails. Get the list of your unopens via your software’s reporting area, and reupload it as a new “group”. Then you can re-send key or urgent news or advertisements. If you are already sending weekly, then don’t re-send to the upopens, since they are already receiving relatively frequent emails from you. This is a great way to make sure to raise your open rates, but only when you target just those who didn’t open the original email.

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