The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

email marketing

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The Role of Timing: When to Send Emails for the Best Open Rates

There are so many variables to a successful email marketing campaign. Crafting the right message to the right readers at the right time is no small feat. In addition to writing a stellar subject line, you must also nail your timing. If you miss the mark, your email could get buried under a pile of unread messages.

So, when is the best time to send emails for optimal open rates? Let’s break it down.

Best Days to Send Emails

Not all days are created equally when it comes to email engagement. By and large, Tuesdays and Thursdaysare the champions for open rates. Wednesdays also perform well. 

Midweek emails tend to garner higher open rates because people are still engaged and not yet mentally checked out for the weekend. That said, you must know your audience. If you are marketing directly to consumers, they may not be able to engage with your content during a traditional 9-5 workday. You may have better luck reaching them in the evenings or on the weekends. Do your research on your audience to understand their behaviors and preferences. 

Best Times to Hit Send

In addition to days of the week, the time of day also matters for your open rate. In general, data suggests the mid-morning block of time tends to be most successful, but again, it depends on your audience. Here are some time blocks to consider for your next email campaign:

  • Early morning (6-8 am) – Many people check their emails first thing in the morning, especially on mobile.
  • Mid-morning (9-11 am) – A sweet spot for professionals settling into their workdays.
  • Afternoon (1-3 pm) – After lunch inboxes get another round of attention.
  • Evening (6-9 pm) – Some users check emails after work hours, but engagement rates tend to be lower.

The Power of A/B Testing

While general trends provide a good starting point, A/B testing is the best way for you to zero in on what works for your audience. Try sending the same email at different times to a segmented audience and analyze the results. Over time, you’ll find your sweet spot. If you need help or are looking to see results faster, give us a call at The Found Gen today. 

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How to Write Subject Lines That Boost Your Open Rate by More Than 30%

You can have the most interesting and insightful email ready to enrapt your readers, but if they don’t open it…well, you’ve wasted time and effort. 

Don’t waste time and effort! Maximize your messaging by creating subject lines that spark curiosity, create urgency or offer clear value. 

One place to start is to harken back to your high school English class days. Whether you were preparing to write that 5-paragraph essay or deliver a demonstrative speech, your teacher likely shared suggestions for making your introductions stand out. Asking a question or sharing a startling statistic are classic “hooks” to grab a reader’s attention. Your subject line needs to be your hook. Here are some more suggestions to help you entice readers to click “open” on their inbox. 

Create a Sense of Urgency

FOMO is real. A now-or-never headline can sway even the most click-resistant readers to take immediate action. An example might be: “Last Chance! 50% Off Ends Tonight!”

Make it Personal

Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Use the recipient’s name (e.g., “John, Your Exclusive Offer is Waiting!”) or reference past behavior to stand out in the inbox. To take that personalization up a notch, you can also try segmenting your email list. This allows you to tailor your messaging even more. 

Use Numbers and Stats

Tune in to your data lovers by giving your subject line something numeric to stand on. For example, “5 Proven Strategies to Double Your Leads.”

Ask a Question

A well-crafted question piques curiosity and encourages engagement – “Are You Making These Email Marketing Mistakes?” 

Keep it Short and Sweet 

Many email clients cut off subject lines after about 50 characters, so keep it concise. Aim for 6-10 words that pack a punch: “Boost Sales with This Simple Trick!”

Leverage the Preheader

Another way to maximize open rates is by taking full advantage of the preheader (or preview text). This is the short snippet of text that follows the subject line in your inbox and gives a glimpse into the email’s content.

For example, if the subject line is “Boost Sales with This Simple Trick!”, the preheader might read: “Ready to ramp up sales? Consider this game-changing strategy.” 

Steer Clear of Spam Triggers

An email won’t be open if it heads straight to spam. Avoid words that make exaggerated claims, unrealistic promises and otherwise sound spammy.

Need Help Crafting Clever Subject Lines that Convert? Contact Us at The Found Gen

A great subject line is the key to higher open rates, better engagement and ultimately, more conversions. Don’t be afraid to experiment to see what works best for your audience, and if you need help making your email marketing work for you, call our team at The Found Gen today.

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AI Can’t Build Relationships: Why Content Professionals Are Key to Connecting with Your Audience

We buy from people, not machines. This adage is as true today as it was a hundred years ago, but with artificial intelligence creeping ever more presently into our lives, it can feel challenging to maintain a personal touch as you market your business. Fortunately, there is a solution to this, and, you guessed it, it’s a person.

The Importance of Human-Generated Content in Building Relationships

The rise of AI-generated content has created a buzz among marketing professionals, and like any new technology, there’s a mix of fear, curiosity and hesitation to jump on the bandwagon. 

Despite any potential reservations, however, AI is a bandwagon many business owners are keen to ride. The tool is fast, cost-effective and can deliver a power-up to marketing efforts. 

But it also comes with limitations. A big one is that it lacks empathy, emotion and understanding of human behavior and relationships.

As potential clients go online to search for solutions, they’re looking for authority, expertise and trustworthiness. Google gets this. In fact, it uses these exact criteria as it evaluates its search ranking systems.Recently it added another E: experience. 

Only humans are experienced authorities, and only humans can produce authentic content that resonates with readers. 

Bridging the Divide

The emergence of any new technology has a way of rattling people. Generative AI is no different. As we wade through these waters and learn to coexist in this new environment, we should never lose sight of what marketing is all about – relationship building. As much as we want to lean on technology, it’s not human and never will be. 

To close the deal on your marketing efforts and build lasting relationships that will pay dividends for years to come, turn to professionals who have been doing this for their entire careers (yep, that’s us). 

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Should You Use AI to Generate Social Media Posts – Including Graphics + Imagery?

Don’t. Just don’t. Here’s why.

If you want to build trust with your audience, you must be authentic and true to your brand. Using artificial intelligence to plug and play content and images on your social media accounts is neither. Audiences will take note. And that’s before we even get into a conversation about copyright issues.

The Double-Edged Sword

AI-generated content including text, graphics and imagery sounds like a dream, and in many ways it is! These tools deliver “creative” work in seconds, which means you don’t have to wait for your coffee buzz to kick in before your brain really amps up. Moreover, experimenting with AI can be fun. There’s a thrill in anticipating what will color your screen after you hit enter on the keyboard.

But fun and games aside, some of the biggest problems with using AI-generated content to market your business have to do with copyright protections and ensuring brand consistency and professionalism. 

In terms of content ownership and copyright protection, U.S. Copyright Laws only protect against human-made creative endeavors. So, if AI creates a sweet logo for your business, no one’s going to be able to stop an up-and-coming competitor from stealing it. Worse yet, who’s to know if AI didn’t steal that logo from someone else? Then, suddenly you will find yourself with a very big problem because, in case you haven’t heard, lawsuits are expensive. 

Quality Control Concerns

Another issue with using AI to generate social media marketing materials is that you run the risk of breaching brand standards. AI tools are machines. They can’t achieve the same level of creativity as your design team or marketing agency, and they can severely miss the mark on nuances required in human interactions. Moreover, they may deliver inconsistent, inaccurate or poor-quality posts. In many ways, generative AI feels too good to be true, and, well, that means it probably is. The best way to balance technology with personality is by adding the human element to your marketing endeavors. We’re here to help. Call us at The Found Gen today.

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Who Owns the AI Content You Generated to Market Your Business

Artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in yet another wave of technological change, and with it come opportunities and concerns, particularly in terms of intellectual property ownership and U.S. copyright law.While it’s nearly certain laws will evolve as technology continues to become even more sophisticated, here’s what we know now about content ownership and copyright protections for AI-generated works. 

Ownership versus Copyright Protection

Using any type of AI-generated content requires you to tread lightly, as it comes with many grey areas.

In general, for now, and depending on the AI tool you use, the user (you) maintains at least some degree of ownership over the content created by the AI tool (depending on the tool, of course). For example, OpenAI’s Terms of Use regarding ownership of content states:

“As between you and OpenAI, and to the extent permitted by applicable law, you (a) retain your ownership rights in Input and (b) own the Output. We hereby assign to you all our right, title, and interest, if any, in and to Output.” 

While this may mean you can use the content created by an OpenAI tool, it in no way gives you legal copyright protection. Said another way, you may be able to publish AI-generated content on your website, but anyone can steal it without repercussions. 

If you want to protect your content against theft, you need to be able to copyright your work. The only way you can do that is by having a human create it. Full stop.

Creating Content in an AI World

If this has left your head spinning (it certainly has ours!), you may be wondering what’s next. AI is part of our world, so how can we coexist? 

Like any tool, AI software needs to be wielded carefully and for the right purpose. There is certainly a time and place for AI assistance. It can speed up brainstorming or help you break out of a mental block, but leaning solely on generative AI can carry serious risks for your business and brand. 

As you work to balance business growth with creative marketing efforts, turn to us at The Found Gen. We deliver the human touch in an AI world so you can build relationships, trust and loyalty with your audience.

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From Spam to Inbox: Improving Your Email Open Rate with List Hygiene 

You’ve got a great subject line, your content provides plenty of value, you’re sending at precisely the right time….and yet your open rate is frustratingly low. Why is this happening? A common culprit is unknowingly sending your emails to outdated and/or nonexistent email addresses. 

For whatever reason (e.g. a new job), some of your subscribers may have stopped using the emails they originally gave you. People also make mistakes like spelling their email addresses wrong or signing up for emails twice. 

When a significant number of email recipients don’t receive or open your emails, your messages are more likely to be flagged as spam. And your subscribers can’t open your emails if they go to their spam boxes. 

You can prevent this from happening by periodically cleansing your email list. This is the process of removing dead, fake, invalid, or duplicate accounts to ensure that you are only sending your emails to people who might actually open them. 

Here’s how to keep your email list clean:

Focus on Engaged Users

Step one in cleaning your email list is separating the contacts who engage with your emails from those who don’t. At first, it might seem logical to just remove the latter group from your list. But here’s the thing about email marketing: Sometimes, people just stop opening your emails for reasons that have nothing to do with your brand. They just naturally become disengaged over time. 

If someone has engaged with your brand before, they can probably be persuaded to do it again. So, before you remove an inactive contact from your list, try to win them back by offering something like a small freebie, a discount, free shipping on their next purchase, etc. 

If they still don’t open your email, then it’s time to remove them from your list. 

Remove Duplicates

Duplicate emails can really mess with the accuracy of your campaign’s performance data. By removing them from your list, you can make sure that your email marketing statistics are up to date and that you aren’t unintentionally emailing anyone twice (which is seriously annoying). If you’re using current software for email marketing, it should take care of duplicates for you. 

Remove Spam and Typos

Next, go through your list and separate any email addresses that look misspelled or fake. People write “0” instead of “o” all the time, or “gnail” instead of “gmail.” A fake email address is also pretty easy to spot. They typically look like long, random strings of letters, like nkshiazjowhnx@xyz.com. 

Again, this is something good marketing software can do on its own. 

Communicate with New Subscribers Right Away

When someone subscribes to your emails, start communicating with them right away. If this person continues to engage with your brand, then you can safely say they are worthy of sending more emails moving forward. The goal is to find out if this person is truly interested in your business as quickly as possible, so you can figure out which email list (engaged vs. disengaged) they belong to. 

Manually going through your email contacts is incredibly tedious. When choosing email marketing software, make sure your platform is programed to keep your email list clean. This is an aspect of marketing where the latest technology – like artificial intelligence – can be very helpful. 

For further guidance about improving your email list hygiene, contact our team at The Found Gen today.