How to Get a Millennial to Open Your Emails

August 4, 2016

Today’s blog post is written by Eli Atkinson, Marketing and Lead Development Intern, Patron Technology.

As a millennial, and an intern this summer at Patron Technology, I’m particularly focused on understanding the challenges of reaching people in my generation by email. First – yes, we read email!

I recently read this article published by Salesforce about how to get people to open your email, and I was struck with how simple yet effective the strategy they outlined seemed. As a marketing student I’ve had professors try to explain the best approach towards email marketing. This article does it well using a simple construct: “Interest = Benefits x Curiosity”.

If I get an email with a subject line that is lengthier, it doesn’t interest me. If you want to draw my attention, the subject line has to contain a reason for me to open it. The longer you take to communicate that reason, the more time I have to decide I don’t care and move on. Most of my peers are like me, we check email on our smartphones. If the subject line doesn’t fit on the screen, I’m not opening it.

Also, many email programs not only show the subject line, but also the first few words of the the email. If I see a subject line that says “Tickets now only $50”, that’s not enough for me to open it. But if the first sentence started with something like “Including a special appearance by…”, that might intrigue me a little more. So think about your first sentence as something that will create curiosity — something that gets me interested with each word.

Finally, remember to be unique. If something seems generic, I usually ignore it. I would think about how your email is truly different (in tone, language and content) from the many emails bombarding inboxes like mine everyday.

How to Get a Millennial to Open Your Emails

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