Quibb’s Secret to Insane Email Open Rates

When I found out that Quibb was getting a 50%-70% open rate on their daily email…

I had to find out what they were doing to get those kinds of results.

I mean that’s unheard of.

If you’ve never heard of Quibb, it’s a exclusive online community where professionals from the tech and start-up industries are invited…and their acceptance rate for new members is currently 36%.

OK – I’m intrigued.

Then I read that their goal is to revolutionize the business news industry and create a modern version of The Wall Street Journal.

Now I’m borderline obsessed with what they’re up to.

So here’s how their membership works…members share what they are readying for work, check out what other entrepreneurs are reading, and discuss the day’s “news.”

Quibb sends out a daily digest to their members that summarizes all the activity that day from the people they follow (so it’s super segmented.) And the open rate is through the roof.

Honestly, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone is getting 70% open rates, much less pulling those numbers on a regular basis.

I DID SOME DIGGING, AND DECONSTRUCTED THEIR 5-INGREDIENT SECRET SAUCE

1. Find out the email subject line format that your readers prefer. You’re going to have to do some split testing here. Short vs. long. Formal vs. casual. You get the idea.

2. Require leads who optin for your free offer (or newsletter or blog updates) to confirm their email address. It’s hands down the best way to increase deliverability and cut down on spam complaints. If you’re currently not doing this, implement this now. We did.

3. Be clear in letting your contacts know the email frequency right at the outset. Unexpectedly slamming new subscribers with daily emails without their knowledge will create email exhaustion and unhappy campers. We make ours clear both on the optin redirect/thank you page and reinforce it in the welcome email.

4. Keep the quality of your emails high and ax those that don’t cut it. Putting out top quality work takes time, but it’s worth the effort. If you notice, we send you one email a week because it takes us several hours to research, create, proof, revise, post the content to the blog, create the email and link to the blog post, etc.

If we start putting out junk just because “we have to check that task off our to-do list,” you guys would notice and quit opening. So we do what we can handle without resorting to sub-standard outsourced content.

5. Track unengaged contacts and try to reactivate them. Most people with an email list know that you have to keep it clean in order to maximize open rates. We’ve talked before about keeping your list clean with periodic scrubbing every three months (quarterly.)

Infusionsoft’s stance is that if a contact hasn’t engaged for 120 days, they are considered a cold lead…and a liability to you. If you continually sent to email addresses that never open your emails, your domain’s reputation is compromised.

Which means that if left unchecked, soon people who WANT your emails won’t get them.

BUMMER, HUH?

Keep in mind, though, these unengaged contacts haven’t taken the full step of unsubscribing so try to reactivate them rather than just dump their records. Send them an email asking them if they still want to hear from you – include an optin link to an Email Preference Center where they can update what types of emails they’d like to continue receiving.

These are the kinds of cool campaigns our Infusionsoft™ Done-With-You service handles with ease.

Seize the day!

Download "7 Reasons Why Your Emails Aren't Opened" Cheat Sheet