The Whitelist

Recently, I came across a blog headline: “5 ways to guarantee you’ll NEVER be successful” and, as a typically ambitious American, I have to admit I clicked on it faster than I mass delete the emails in my SPAM folder. The catchy fear-inducing word “never” captured my curiosity, as in: “One: am I doing any of these things? and two: I want to learn what these things are so I’ll never do them!”

But then I ran across a very similar article on email marketing written by Danny Iny on the AWeber blog entitled: “Can ‘Bad News’ Lift Response Rates?”. Because I clicked on a blog that I’ve never bothered to read before due to a “bad news” title in the very same day, my interest was once again piqued. Given my recent experience, my thinking was, “Why yes, a “bad news” subject line WOULD increase email marketing response rates, and therefore, ROI.”

Typically, “bad news” email subject lines increase response rates initially because they:

• Prompt a question, rather than giving an answer
• Highlight a problem, rather than outlining a solution
• Evoke curiosity

These are three “musts” for a killer subject line that guarantee a high email open rate. While these kind of bad news subject lines do traditionally increase open rates initially, due to a feeling of panic and anxiety: “People read the email because they want to make sure they aren’t going to be negatively affected,” Iny writes, the overall results fall downhill from there. A negative-themed subject line can backfire over the long term because:

Your subscriber might not care about your bad news. If someone you actually know emails you with bad news, your stomach may drop a little bit and you feel your anxiety levels rising with concern. But “bad news” from an email marketer may result in disinterest, suspicion, or worse:

Your subscriber may lose trust in you. Many “bad news” subject lines open to messages that don’t actually contain bad news, and much like the fable of crying wolf, your subscribers might feel manipulated, or worse, deceived. “If your audience ends up feeling like you were employing cheap tactics to get them to buy from you,” says Iny, “then it will likely backfire.”

And a lack of trust means increased unsubscribes, possible spam reporting, and a drop in email deliverability. So if you’re considering implementing a “bad news” subject line email marketing strategy to increase response rates, think carefully and use them sparingly: if an initial boost in open rates ends up costing you subscribers in the end, you’re facing an email subject line strategy that will cost you big time.

Test Those Subject Lines!

In our last post, we talked about the importance of testing your email schedule for deliverability to mobile devices, given the prevalence of mobile devices on bedside tables and the increase in email engagement in the “wee hours” of the morning and weekends. This is a new trend that is only happening due to the surge in popularity of smartphone and email-enabled mobile devices. And once we get started talking about testing for email deliverability, it’s hard for us to stop!

After all, we encourage testing all the time. As a smart email marketer, you should choose something to test every time you create and send an email. It could be anything from your From name to when you send out your emails, to subject line variations. Constant testing falls into the category of email deliverability best practices for several reasons. First, anything you can do to improve your email deliverability rate is a good thing. And testing is the surest way to know how to increase your deliverability rate!  Second, once you’ve gotten into the inbox, anything you can do to improve interaction with your recipient is going to improve your email marketing ROI. And what is your number one way to guarantee increased email open rate? A successful subject line. Your email subject line is equivalent to the headline of a news article. A subject line is a teaser that either provokes interest or removes any possibility of it.

But how do you know if your subject lines are working? Why, testing them of course! And now that we’re focused on testing as an email deliverability best practice, the recent Email Marketing Reports article on subject line testing is very timely!

Three main lessons?

1) In subject lines, there are no absolutes. Even industry standards like “All subject lines should be short” have some caveats.

2) Find out what works best FOR YOU (really: your customers) by a simple A/B test.

3) Make sure you’re measuring what’s important to you. Is it open rate or click-through rate?

For five more lessons with additional detail on how to avoid problems in testing and interpreting, make sure to make it one of your email deliverability best practices to read the full article…today!

Email Subject Line Best Practices: Magic Words that Guarantee An Opened Email

Recently, I came across a blog post entitled “The Four Words That Will Get Your Email Opened” and I couldn’t resist clicking on the link.

Here’s what they said.

“You Are Not Alone.”

Those are the four words that, in a somewhat unscientific yet convincing study, demonstrated an email open rate of 90%. That’s incredible. But let’s think about why this may be.

As anyone with any level of familiarity with psychology knows, one of the biggest fears that humans have, as the social creatures we are, is being alone. And any message that counteracts this fear is one we are hardwired to listen to. And that includes email subject lines.

If the subject line alludes to 1) useful information contained within the body of the email, and 2) the email recipient is not the only one who will benefit from the information, your email open rates (and email deliverability) are bound to soar.

Make sure you reinforce this idea by crafting engaging and useful content in your email. Your alluring subject line may have gotten your email opened, but don’t betray the trust with providing empty statements, boring or useless information, or worse, failing to address what your subject line alludes to. The last thing you want to do as an email marketer is be a tease. Deliver on your promises, and in this case, your subject line is promising good information and engaging content, if only your subscriber will open the email.

What subject line keywords have you noticed generate the most open rates? Have you used the “You are not alone” approach? Leave a comment below and let us know how it’s worked for you, or if you experiment with it in your next email marketing campaign, share your results with us! We’d love to hear from you!

The other day we saw an article that dismissed the use of numbers as the basis for an article. We’ve all seen these types of articles: 100 Ways to Optimize Your Web Site; 10 Tips for Better Email Subject Lines; 43 Things You Should Know About Email Marketing. And so on.

The author’s point was, be careful about these types of headlines because they often lead you to articles that lack substance. The articles are usually just recycled information, he claimed.
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Email subject lines: Now there’s a topic email marketers can debate at a cocktail party! Problem is, for all the attention the topic gets, the subject line isn’t necessarily the first thing your recipients look at when deciding whether or not to open your email.

The “From” line might be.
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It seems we’re all after the subject line Holy Grail. Everyone wants to know the ideal subject line length for maximizing open rates. But based on what I’ve been reading lately, it’s not cut and dry. It depends on what you really want to maximize: your open rates or your click throughs.

Studies are showing that although shorter subject lines (often it’s less 35 characters or seven words) work best for increasing your open rates. But guess what? Longer subject lines are better for increasing your click through rates! And possibly your conversions.

What happens is this: A longer subject line can be more specific and therefore more relevant to a smaller segment of your audience. As a result, fewer people open the email, but those that do are more interested in your offer, and therefore more likely to convert.

I doubt we’ll ever have a guaranteed email subject line length but there’s one thing I can guarantee: The way to know what works is to test, test, test, test. Remember, email marketers, in your world, testing is much more doable than in the print marketer’s world. Take advantage of that ability to boost your email marketing ROI.

For more on how to write an email subject line, see the useful guide from Lyris: “Email Subject Lines: 15 Rules to Write Them Right.” It’s available on the ClickMail Web site at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/pdfs/Lyris_15Rules_for_Subject_Lines.pdf.

We all know, or should know, that writing subject lines is hard work. Just a few little words can make or break the success of your email marketing campaign. And not just by impacting your open rates. What goes in that little box can affect your deliverability too.

Even if you’re diligent about avoiding words like Viagra in your subject line, you can trigger spam filters with little things you probably didn’t even think of, like punctuation.

What’s a smart email marketer to do? Have no fear, here’s a great little tool that any email marketer can use to check an email subject line for spamminess: http://www.localnews.biz/subjectline/validatesubjectline.asp.

Just type in your subject line and the tool will check for word usage, capitalization, punctuation, numbers, length and more. It only takes a minute and might save you a bundle in lost revenue from your next email marketing campaign by making sure you don’t negatively impact your deliverability!