Improve your subject lines = Improve your opening rates = £££££!
by Steve White
Loadsa Money!!!
I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is you are only a few short words from success in your next email campaign. The bad news is that establishing what those “few short words” should be is a task that takes a great deal of deliberation and consideration. Well, it certainly should be. Subject lines can literally make or break an email’s performance – influencing everything from the opening rate to the click through rate. Obviously there are other contributing factors – the day and time of send to name but two – but without a doubt the key influencer has to be those “few short words”.
Now, I’ll be up front with you. I’m not going to give you a magic formula for “can’t fail subject lines.” For one thing I don’t believe such a one-size-fits-all solution actually exists. However, what I am going to give you is a series of tips and factors that you should always consider, when trying to establish what works for your audience. Bear in mind this is not a something you will complete in an afternoon. It will take a great deal of time and patience, but the rewards can be substantial.
Size does matter
The first thing to consider is: just how long should the perfect subject line be? Historically, the view has always been “the shorter the better” with the consensus being that they should be no longer than 50 characters. This opinion was based on the fact that email clients, such as AOL, failed to display more than 40 characters. However, things have changed and now most email clients allow up to 100 characters to be visible.
12 months or so ago I came across a piece of research from Alchemy Worx that I think proves how hard it is to find a formula that works for your business and your customer. The study analyzed over 200 million emails and over 600 unique subject lines. What it discovered was that while shorter subject lines delivered higher opening rates, it was the longer headline messages that delivered better click-throughs.
The bottom line is you need to dedicate some time to establishing what length works best for your emails. Just be aware that while a short snappy subject line might work brilliantly for a promotional, sales-based email, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for an e-newsletter.
Freddie Starr ate my subject line
It undoubtedly takes skill to write good subject lines; a skill not too dissimilar to that of writing tabloid headlines. Just like a tabloid headline, a subject line has to clearly state what your reader can expect from your email, and more importantly what’s in it for them.
One rule Red C always use when writing subject lines is to keep the offer, or reason to open, at the forefront of the message. This stops the cut-off point to occurring at a crucial word or price point. After all, there’s little point in having a fantastic incentive and not promoting it appropriately. You wouldn’t only print half of a message on an outer, would you? Red C have tested this over the last few years, for a number of different clients in differing sectors, and the results all seem to
support this rule.
Quick…. read this next paragraph now
Creating a sense of urgency can have a big impact on your opening rates and it is certainly something you should consider and investigate. By giving the recipient a deadline it reduces the chance that the customer might put the email to one side for later consideration. This is important, as even if the customer intends to revisit the message, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will. The vast majority of response is generated around the time of distribution, so the more customers we can get opening the message, the better.
<Name>, read this paragraph
Another area for consideration is personalization. Nothing beats that sense of being spoken to as an individual and the more relevant you can be with it, the bigger the potential for success. Incorporating the name of your customer into your subject line was once something I think customer’s appreciated. However, I’m not sure this is still the case as I think customers might even view <name> personalization with suspicion due to the increasing volume of e-trash we now receive with first name personalization.
So whereas Red C tread carefully around forename or surname personalization, we wholeheartedly embrace more sophisticated personalization, especially if you are able to base this personalization around previous buying behavior. Just be aware that the purchase may have been a gift for someone, so might not necessarily be of huge interest to the recipient of the email.
From who?
There is undoubted merit in incorporating your brand name within the subject line of your email, as it will certainly assist in your email standing out from an overflowing inbox. However, I would question whether you need to incorporate this into your subject line if your “from” line already tells the recipient who has sent the email. Personally, if your “from” doesn’t detail this information I would certainly test the impact of incorporating brand within the subject line.
Don’t stretch the truth
Over the years I have seen a few instances where a brand has placed too great an emphasis on opening rates by stretching the truth when it comes to the emails’ content. There is absolutely no point whatsoever smashing your average opening rate if you’re misleading your customer. All you’ll have is a disgruntled customer and a poor click-through rate. You may even break the customer’s trust to such as extent that they won’t ever open one of your emails again.
Although I would advise against stretching the truth I’m certainly a big advocate of creating a sense of mystery within the subject line. For example, I’ve seen that by being a little illusive can generate better response than being completely upfront. For example, if you were to have an offer where you were giving away a ‘Free bracelet’ with any order I would certainly advise that you looked at testing ‘Free gift with every order’ against ‘Free watch with every order’. I know what my money would be on!
‘Free’ advice on words not to use
There was a time when there was a list of words and symbols that you were advised against using in your subject line.
Don't be scared of 'Free'
Words such as ‘Free’ and ‘Save’ were always said to have triggered off those troublesome spam filters. This was probably the case, but the content of your subject line, and indeed email, is becoming less and less of a factor in determining whether it falls foul. Email deliverability specialists Return Path report that only 17% of emails that are blocked are down to the emails’ content. So although, it’s still something to be aware of you shouldn’t be scared of using promotional words such as ‘Free’ or indeed ‘Save’.
Test, test and test again
My final top tip (and I hope this is something that has come across during this article) is the need to continually test and evolve your subject lines. The right formula for one type of email isn’t necessarily going to be the right formula for another. Test the length, test the content, test using personalization and test incorporating the brand name. Also, if you can add a day to your process I would very much advise that you pretest. Send a few subject line options to small batches of your customer base and see what performs best. I would also advise you not to just use the opening rate as the KPI that you base all future decisions on. Click-through rate is something you also need to consider and be aware of.
It may seem like an awful lot of work considering we’re talking about what might just be a “few short words”, but those “few short words” could literally make or break your email’s performance, so it deserves to be given the consideration that it deserves.
Tags: Alchemy Worx, Click-Through Rates, Direct Marketing Agency, E-Newsletters, Email Campaign Success, Email Marketing Agency, Email Subject Lines, Email Testing Program, Heat-map Anaysis, Higher Opening Rates, Online Marketing Agency, Personalised Subject Lines
