Sneaky Email Marketing Tactic to Increase Open Rates?

I found this email in my inbox today. As a marketer I pay attention to how companies market to me. It's very interesting to look at an email from the consumer and producer's point of view.

Check this out, an email I received from the ProBlogger folks. Great people and I hope to meet Darren sometime.

While they probably didn't mean to be sneaky and didn't even realize about this thing that is happening in the screenshot, what if they did.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to email your list and deliberately cross the size limit for the message at which point it gets the "Message clipped" alert and link.

Now most people if you search "message clipped" and Gmail are actually trying to prevent this from happening when they notice it.

They go through great lenghts and efforts to reduce the size of the email to under 102kb --that's when Gmail decides to clip a message and give you that link.

I think we should test this and see if more people open the messages when Gmail clips them vs when they don't. After all, if you have to click on a link to view the entire message, you're more likely to read it and maybe even follow through to a link.

The click to "view entire message" link denotes one of those micro-commitments that move a prospect closer to being a customer, the same micro-commitments that move subscribers and casual readers into fans.

In my case. I wanted to know. When Gmail clips a message, I don't get to read the intro, the heading, that little preview line you usually see does not get shown so I'm forced to trust the email subject line only and commit to at least opening up that message.

That could make a huge difference in your opening rates. But be warned... this will probably only work with lists that have at least some traction already and where the members have subscribed with a double opt-in method. Try at your own risk!

But on a side note... If you aren't doing email marketing then you're missing out. Email is still the most "sticky," influential and prevalent form of communication online.

You can try Aweber for free right here. The choice for email marketers and the best for your business.

The older generations consider email "too informal" while the younger generations consider it a little too formal. Either way, it doesn't matter because from the youngest to the oldest, have email and they check it once every few days if not several times each day.