Your Partner for Online Growth
The subject line is the only part of your email that recipients are almost guaranteed to see. It’s arguably one of the most important elements of any email marketing campaign.
So here are some top tips for getting the subject line right:
1. Find out who’s opening your emails on what devices
It is widely advised that you get the key elements of your subject line into the first 60 characters. But with the increase in use of widescreen laptops does this rule still apply? We’ve actually seen increasing open rates for longer subject lines.
The key question is what devices are your recipients opening your emails on? Ask your ESP about ‘email client analysis’ to identify the percentage of your contacts that open your emails on smart phones. Small screens mean short subject lines are more effective.
2. Test it
Nothing beats split testing when it comes to honing the most effective subject line. Make sure you use a large enough test sample to get meaningful results (a 49%/51% test result isn’t significant enough to indicate the better subject line).
And don’t forget to focus on the criteria you are measuring the success of your split test by. It might not be that the subject line generating the most opens is the best measurement. If you have a key call to action in the email that measuring clicks is more worthwhile, or clicks to opens.
3. Be single minded
Be clear about the key offer, benefit or proposition in your email content and communicate that and only that in your subject line.
4. Beware being mysterious
Implied or intriguing subjects may drive more email opens, but specific, relevant subject lines are more likely to generate opens and click through. If you’re going to test a ‘mysterious’ subject line then make sure your recipients aren’t left feeling disappointed or misled when they open the email.
5. Tell, don’t sell
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put an offer in your subject line if it’s your key message. But keep the subject line as factual as possible.
6. Write it last
Make sure you come up with your subject lines after you’ve written the rest of your message. Many marketers do this the wrong way around and it means that your subject line doesn’t accurately reflect the content of your email.
7. Use a spell checker
It might sound obvious, but so many marketers fail to check this most basic requirement.
8. Make sure it is spam free
To ensure your subject line is spam filter friendly, make sure you avoid the use of capital letters and exclamation marks. There’s no one word that will get your message filtered out, but the most important thing is to just make sure your email doesn’t look like spam.
9. Wear your recipients’ shoes
Put yourself in their position as a recipient of your email when you write your all-important subject line. If you were them, what would trigger your interest and make you want to read more?
10. Seek inspiration in your own inbox
It’s always worth signing up to your competitors’ email newsletters and those of other organisations relevant to what you do. See what they do and borrow the best!
Want to get quick access to great looking reports on any campaigns you've sent?
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With so many calls on your time you need to make sure that your efforts spent following up sales leads is focused on those that you know are considering a purchase or have shown some interest already in your service, the Warm leads…
This is where the MailMaker123 online reports really shine. When you have sent a campaign you can immediately see who has already opened them and clicked on your links.
To start with the most important details will be the opened so far and clicked on a link percentages. You can click on each of these to see exactly who has opened or clicked and when they have done so. If perhaps you had sent a campaign to 500 people and 200 opened it, of these 50 clicked on a link about a service you offer then these are the leads you might focus on. You may even decide to make a special offer to the select 10 people that opened this link multiple times. This allows you to make a sales pitch to a select few rather than broadcasting a reduced rate to everyone.
Regards
The MailMaker123 team
We really encourage clients to resend a campaign about 12 or 14 days later to those who didn't open the first time around - use a different subject line and get more opens for your initial effort - a great way to use your monthly account for best value effect! You are getting a second pass on your list without bothering those subscribers that opened already - Don't forget to use a different subject line that may appeal to them this time!
MarketingSherpa confirm this approach in this interesting article ....
Autoresponders make it easy to stay in touch with your subscribers without lifting a finger. Quickly build and schedule automated welcome messages, birthday greetings and other date-based campaigns. Send single emails or a sequence over time.
Choose your trigger
You set exactly what should trigger each autoresponder to be sent. Whenever a subscriber matches that condition, we’ll send away.
When a subscriber joins your list
Great for a welcome email or even a sequence of emails over time to new subscribers when they join your list.
The anniversary of a subscriber’s date
Perfect for special annual events like a subscriber’s birthday or wedding anniversary. We ignore the year value and send this annually. Just set it and forget it.
The exact match for a subscriber’s date
Ideal for one-off emails that need to be sent based on a specific subscriber’s date, like a membership renewal reminder or a post purchase follow-up.
You can set up a sequence of unlimited emails for each type of autoresponder you create. Combine these with our new date-based custom fields and the possibilities are endless.