Email marketing is vital for every business. Assuming you’ve got over the GDPR hurdle and are now fully compliant with the new regulations, it’s time to start thinking about your next email marketing campaign.
The best campaigns are those that work in tandem with your other online marketing efforts, such as your social media chatter.
According to a recent report by Salesforce.com:
- 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email
- 72% of B2B buyers share useful content via email
- 82% of consumers open emails from companies
- 33% of recipients open emails based on the subject line alone
- 64% open an email because of the subject line
What’s very interesting is the final two stats, which suggest your subject line is critical to the success of your campaign.
With that in mind, here are a few words of wisdom I published a few years ago. They talk about the importance of your email subject lines.
The importance of the email subject line
Adestra has just released its annual subject line analysis report that shows usability and clarity is the key to getting good email open and click rates. So forget the cryptic teaser subject lines, people don’t have the time or energy to try and work out what you’re talking about. If you’re having a sale, tell people; if you’re launching a new video, tell them; if you’re announcing a news item, guess what? Tell them.
The report shows that using the word ‘free’ in your subject line will decrease open and click rates, but using ‘free delivery’ had the opposite effect.
So what other keywords work? Well, how about:
- Sale
- New
- Alert
- News
- Video
- Win
- Daily
- Weekly
Those that didn’t perform so well were:
- Only
- Learn
- Report
- Today
- Webinar
- Get
- Register
- Don’t miss
- Re:
- Fw:
Even if you spent hours putting your email’s content together, a hasty subject line could undo all your hard work.
Your subject line is the key to getting your emails read, so it makes sense to spend time over them.
Have a read of Adestra’s report to see what nuggets you can glean that will give your email marketing the shot in the arm it needs.
Sally Ormond is an international copywriter. Working with some top brands, her words and approach have been attracting customers for over a decade.