The latest statistics show average email open rates for the legal industry are just over 21%. If your email campaigns are performing below this benchmark, you have some work to do to boost those open rates. Here are 5 tips to help you do that:

Tip #1: Resend to subscribers who didn’t open your email the first time.

You probably think that once you send an email to your list, there’s not much you can do to reach the non-openers with your message.   Oh, but there is. You can resend the same email campaign to subscribers who didn’t open them. All you need to do is change your subject line.

Whatever email distribution service you use — Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. — offers a way to resend to non-openers. Just search for instructions in the Help section. You just need to wait several days — or even up to a month — to resend. While your open rate won’t be as high as the first time you sent your email, you will increase the number of subscribers who see your email and re-engage them so that the next time they receive an email from you, they are more likely to open it the first time.

Tip #2: Clean your list.

If you have people on your list who have not opened any of your emails for the past 18 months, you need to ask them if they still want to hear from you. Removing inactive subscribers does not hurt you, it helps you. Your open rates will increase, your bounce and unopen rates will decrease as will your email marketing costs. Search the help library on your email distribution service’s website for “clean list” and you will see instructions on how to send re-engagement campaigns to your 1- and 2-star subscribers — these are the ones who haven’t engaged much with your emails. Send the re-engagement campaign at least three times before you move them off your list.

Tip #3: Segment your list.

The more relevant your emails are to your recipients, the better your open rate will be. To achieve relevancy, you need to segment your list using criteria that aligns with your subscriber’s areas of interest (car accident/truck accident/motorcycle accident/bicycle accident) or buying patterns (prospect/new client/repeat client/old client (no business within past year). Creating campaigns for each segment that speaks to the uniqueness of each subscriber’s situation will really boost your open rates.

Tip #4: A/B test subject lines.

If you have a large list — more than 5,000 subscribers — you should be A/B testing your campaigns. Test two different subject lines on a small percentage of your list and then roll out the highest performing subject line to your entire list.

Tip #5: Examine open rates to create better subject lines.

Take a look at your top 5 best and worst performing email campaigns to see what they have in common. We’ve found that the best performing subject lines typically have:

• 50 or fewer characters

• Are personal or local (“Brian, these tips could save you a bundle in legal fees”)

• Are concise and clear (“Free eBook offer ends August 1”)

Take what is working and replicate it for future campaigns and jettison what isn’t working.