• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 4, 2020

People trapped at home crave email. They want your offers.

That’s the way it looks based on a 22% increase in B2C open rates between May 15 and May 31 compared to those seen in January, says Jay Schwedelson, CEO of Worldata, speaking in a webinar on Thursday.

B2B opens rose by 18% and email newsletter opens increased by 17% during the period, while email sign-ups surpassed January’s by 41% and total inbox activity is up 18%. 

What's driving this?

“Email is this place of happy offers and wonderful things,” Schwedelson says. 

But Schwedelson warns that it’s time to “suspend what you know to be true.”

Case in point: the use of urgency. Before COVID-19, you couldn’t miss with lines like ”Today only!” But things moved to suable urgency in March and April, as in “Don’t miss out!”

“The game is over,” Schwedelson says. “The sense of urgency is back more than ever.” 

B2C emails with some form of a date in the subject line see a 38% lift. In B2B, it’s 41%. And in general, B2C emails with offers that expire have 67% higher response rates and 51% in B2B.

Then there are subject-line words. Here are the ones that are working:

• Free — 41%
• Today — 32%
• Last chance — 28%
• June — 25% 
• Tomorrow — 25% 
• Hours — 24%
• Hurry — 21'% 
• Exclusive — 20% 
• Delivery — 17%
• Home — 16% 
• Remotely — 16%

Note the lift you get for mentioning June..”What’s so important about June? It’s not May,” Schwedelson jokes.  

Seeing this, some brands are sending more emails. Before May 20, the typical frequency was a three-times touch over two weeks and two times in B2C. 

Now the B2C average is a four-time touch, and three times in B2B. Some marketers are sending the same offer on a daily basis.

And it’s working: Send four times vs. two times, and the increase is 64% in B2C and 47% in B2B.

Will people unsubscribe if you send them too many emails? Here’s why they opt out:

• Receive emails too often — 28% 
• Content is irrelevant — 26%
• Never signed up for the list — 15% 
• My interests have change — 12% 
• Other — 19%

Add it up, and “72% said nothing to do with how much email you’re sending,” Schwedelson notes. 

He points to a stat showing that “92% of people who unsubscribe have not opened or clicked an email from that sender for over 12 months.” 

Here are a couple of tips. First, make sure the image on your landing page is the same as the one in your email.

Second, stop asking for the person’s work email in B2B. Many people are unemployed — open up your forms to consumer emails.

Schwedelson concludes that “it’s the right thing to do.”