MERA guest editorial
“Pick Up” Prospects with Great Email Subject Lines
E
mail marketing isn’t the newest market- ing tactic, but with a return on investment of 4:1, it continues to be one of the biggest drivers of conversions for businesses. It’s
an extremely versatile marketing tool that can deliver any message you want to send to your audience with great success. However, it loses its effectiveness if your audience doesn’t open your emails. One of the biggest causes of unopened emails is a
subject line that misses the mark. So, if your emails aren’t delivering the results you were hoping for, it may be time to work on your subject line game. Writing a great subject line is a lot like coming up with the perfect pick up line. Both can make or break your chance for future attention and conversation with a single statement. Asking an attractive lady if it hurt when she fell from heaven or talking about rearranging the alphabet so that “U” and “I” are together is likely to result in an eye roll or a slap in the face. Similarly, having a bad subject line will result in the email equivalent—the trash or spam folder—wasting the money you spent to send that email and ruining your chances of converting that prospect into a customer. The key to a great subject line is to attract enough interest with- out being too forward or giving too much away. It sounds simple enough, but it’s certainly not easy. What gets one person to open up your email will have others sending it directly to the trash. While there is no secret formula for crafting the perfect sub-
ject line (believe us, we’ve looked!), there are a few no-fail tips that can help you not only stay out of the trash, but actually get your email opened.
Know Your Audience The best thing you can do when it comes to crafting a pick-up line or an email subject line is to get to know your audience. Find out things like age, gender, income, geography, likes and dislikes, sense of humor, price sensitivity and industry/product knowledge. You will already know the answers to some of these questions just from interacting with your customers. Another great way to find out more about your customers and
prospects is by sending them a quick survey. You can use these surveys to find out demographic information by asking them about who they are and what they like. This information can be
66 Mobile Electronics June 2014
SUZANNE MARTIN CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, REVENEW
immensely insightful, not only for writing email sub- ject lines, but also for improving the effectiveness of all of your marketing communications. The remaining questions can likely be answered by looking at past behavior. Which of your previ- ous subject lines had the highest open rates? Which of your emails resulted in the highest click-through rate? By looking at what has been successful in the past, you’ll get a good idea of what your customers respond to. You’ll also want to look at what didn’t work in the past. Which subject lines didn’t get results? Which ones caused people to unsubscribe? Make sure to steer clear of those sorts of subject lines in the future.
Do you have a lot of different types of people in your data-
base? Try segmenting your list into groups of similar people and trying different subject lines for each group.
Choose Your Words Carefully The quickest way to get your message ignored is to include spam trigger words in your subject line. This will send your message straight to your audience’s spam folder, never to be seen or read. We all know we shouldn’t include phrases like “you’re a winner!” or “earn extra cash” in your subject lines, but often words like “increase” or “thousands” can make your message land in the spam folder. These words change based on what messages people report as spam, but some spam words and symbols to avoid include dollar signs, saying 100 percent free, 50 percent off, “Affordable,” “Amazing stuff” and “Call NOW!” to name a few. Great subject lines tell the recipient what is in the email while
still giving them a reason to open it up. They are simple and to the point. Don’t try to write a novel or include the entire email’s contents in the subject line unless you want it to end up in the trash. As a general rule of thumb, keep your subject lines less than 50 characters (including spaces). What did we learn here? In general, the best subject lines are
short, informative, free of spam triggers and are written with an understanding of the recipient. If you keep these things in mind, you will be on your way to better email open rates and greater success from your email marketing.
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