Opening an email is a decision that is made in a very short time - a matter of seconds (or sometimes even less). Think about your own email habits, and the thoughts that go through your mind as you go through your over-crowded inbox each day.

To improve your open rates and have more of your newsletter recipients open your email you will need to give thought as to how you can get their attention and get them to want to open emails from you!

There are a few clues you and every email user use to determine the value of opening an email:

• Who is the email from?
• What has been my experience of emails from this person in the past?
• What is the email subject?
• How many other emails do I have to deal with?

And it pretty much happens in that order. The end result is a simple decision with three options:

1. Open the email and read it
2. Delete the email
3. Ignore the email (and possibly return to it later)

The decision really comes down to a trade-off between time and expected value. If the recipient expects to get some benefit from opening the email, they will most likely open it. If they expect to get little benefit from opening it, they will delete it or ignore it. If they ignore it, they may or may not come back to it, and the same decision making process is repeated.

When you are creating your Email Campaign or Newsletter consider all of the above and do your utmost to ensure your emails have high value for your readers. You should aim to send a newsletter that your subscribers want to read as soon as they see it hit their inbox!!!!