According to custom market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey (cited in Marcia Yudkin’s The Marketing Minute), a whopping 47 percent of email recipients decide to open an email based on its subject line. Not too much pressure there, eh?
If you want to improve your subject lines and open rates, you will want to take note of these five suggestions from McKenzie Gregory (@kenziegreg) of Emma.
- Use character count. During a webinar years ago, a direct marketing guru suggested no more than 41 characters. It doesn’t seem that much has changed since then. Ms. Gregory says that many marketers aim for 40–50 characters. More or fewer characters may be more memorable, though. At Emma, they try to keep the count down, because iPhones cut subject lines off about 35 characters. And, as we all know, that’s where tons of folks are opening their emails.
- Give potential readers an incentive to open. That is, “Tell them what they’ll get (and make it valuable).” Don’t get so caught up in your brand that you waste valuable space and time being cute, though humor is ok. And never, never mislead.
- Don’t ignore preheader text. “ … your preheader text can actually what be makes or breaks the success of your subject line.” Depending on the mail program you’re using, you have anywhere from 35 to 140 characters for a preheader. Quite a range, eh? A 2016 survey says that 25 percent of your audience use your preheader to decide whether or not to open your email.
- Be yourself. Be authentic. Start with email best practices, of course, but if you know your audience well, you may be able to successfully disregard them. (Check out Ms. Gregory’s post on the topic .)
- Yes. Don’t assume anything. Preferences change, technology evolves, industries shift—think Uber and Airbnb—so test and iterate continually.
Short form, which is what email subject lines are, after all, is hard to do right. And that’s probably what makes it fun.
anyaberkut / 123RF Stock Photo
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