Know your niche
The truth of email marketing is that no single approach works for all clients. Purchasers of GoodNites, a Pull-Ups diaper product, tend to respond to longer-than-average subject lines, says Epsilon's Stallings. In addition to varying length for niche audiences, it's also ok to be boring, says Peterson (See: Lyris: Newsletter).
Depending on the audience, keywords such as "tips," "tricks" or "secrets" can also work well, says Stallings. He recommends looking to magazine headlines for guidance for subject lines that work, such as "9 ways to cut your electricity bill" or "Fall fashion."
Constant Contact's Arnold recommends that marketers carefully consider their audience when determining email frequency. If your marketing message happens to revolve around the weather, then you can probably justify sending out a daily email. If you're a stockbroker, he says, you can even get by with two emails a day -- as long as they're short. But if your content doesn't specifically dictate a frequency, then you should probably only contact your audience on a monthly basis.
Arnold also advises marketers to categorize and subcategorize their lists. For example, by tracking clicks, a marketer targeting consumers about vacations could determine whether an email recipient is interested in singles vacations, couples vacations or family vacations. The marketer could then better determine who to target with the offer for a Disneyland vacation and who might be more interested in a dating cruise.
Along the same lines, Arnold points to a successful campaign by Boulder Arts & Crafts Gallery that used the subject line "In Store Coupon -- Today Only." That campaign worked because it segmented the audience into online and in-store shoppers, thereby increasing open rates among in-store-only shoppers. The "today only" component of the subject line helped add urgency, Arnold says.
