The vice president of Premiere Global Services' marketing services gives seven reliable tips for email marketing.
Over the past few years, email industry experts have inundated marketers with a number of tips, tricks and best practices for email marketing. Some tips change with the evolving industry, but there is one tip that remains as constant as the humidity in Miami-- subject lines matter. Email marketers, address them!
But you don't have to take my word for it, after all, in a recent survey Jupiter Research reported that 35 percent of email recipients cited a subject line as the reason he/she opened the email. Still not convinced? Think about some of the emails you have opened over the past few weeks, I'll bet they each contained one, if not more of the following best practices.
Please state your name and occupation
It is important to remember that people want to know whom an email is from, and email recipients are leery of opening emails that are not immediately recognizable. If Stan from customer service is sending a sales confirmation, the customer may be expecting the confirmation, but does not recognize Sam's name. In an instance like this, be sure your company name is included within the subject line. For example, "Recent Dell Purchase, Order Confirmation Enclosed."
Brevity
Unlike in college when every word brought you one step closer to reaching the 15-page minimum for your term paper, or in my case, the end of an editorial byline, subject lines should be short. The shorter, the better. Several major ISPs truncate subject lines after 35 characters, so keep your subject lines less than 35 characters in length, including spaces.
Show the value of your offer
When your recipients are taking time out of their busy schedule to read your email, the first thought that comes to mind is: "What's in it for me?" If you have included a 20 percent off coupon, say so. If you are having an exclusive, time-sensitive online offer, let your recipient know. Providing this information will not only help improve your open rates, but it might even cause your recipient to share the news of the offer with a friend or colleague.
Consistency is key
If you are enticing your customers with a "Sale," call it that. If it is a "Special Offer," stick to that title. But, if you are promising best-practices and how-to advice, be sure your copy supports this. Don't confuse your email campaign recipients by utilizing a number of different names for the same offer. Consumers are busy, and you have only seconds to make an impression.
Leave spam-like language to the spammers
Ask yourself, "Does my subject line contain spam triggers?" Avoid special characters ($, %, !!!, @, &) in your subject lines. Also, if you include your promotion in the subject line (as you should, per my suggestion above) steer clear of spam-catching words including: Free, You Win, For a Limited Time, Guaranteed, Important Message, et cetera.
Use proper grammar
Your mom was right, first impressions are everything. This may sound like a no-brainer, but the number of typos and grammatical mistakes that are contained in subject lines are astounding. It only takes a few extra minutes to proof your work, or better yet, have someone proof it for you. You wouldn't hire someone who had misspellings, typos and grammar mistakes peppered through their resume. Why would you buy a chandelier from a company that sent you an email titled: "20% Off Shandelleers Threw Wenesday?"
Test and track
Once you have checked your subject lines to ensure you have incorporated the above best practices, you have one thing left to do-- test and track. Testing (and this goes beyond just the subject line) requires that you start with the subject line. If you weren't listening before, I'll say it again. A good subject line is what causes recipients to open a message; just as a poor subject line gets that same message sent straight to the delete folder. As a rule of thumb, for a list of two million or more, test at least three percent to five percent of a list if doing a sample. Keep in mind a smaller list will require a larger test sample. Once you have hit the send button, the job is not over. To ensure that email campaigns become increasingly targeted and continue to drive results, it is important to track open-rates, clickthrough and response rates. Specifically, marketers should utilize email solutions that allow them to analyze the number of subscribers on a list, how they were acquired and how they have responded over time. Tracking helps marketers pinpoint the key variables that drive consumers to purchase a specific service or product.
At the end of the day, I'm not asking for much, just that email marketers start from the top and address their subject lines. Write them first, not last.
Tricia Robinson is vice president of marketing services at Premiere Global Services. Read full bio.