Improve the Impact of Your Email Marketing SUBJECT LINES MATTER
You spend valuable time and money on your email marketing, but your efforts will go to waste if your customers don’t open your messages. Your open rate is one of the most critical email metrics, and the single best way to improve yours is by writing compelling subject lines that make your customers want to click. So, how do you spark curiosity and stay out of the spam folder? A 2019 study by market research group Radicati found that the average person receives 96 emails daily, and your business is hardly the only one trying to convince them to buy something. Your customers will likely spend only seconds deciding whether to open your email, delete it, or report it as spam. You must capture their attention quickly and give them a reason to click. Writing the perfect subject line isn’t easy. What works for one industry or demographic may not work for another. But you should always try to follow three simple rules. No. 1: Keep it short. Email platforms will only display so many characters of your subject line before cutting it off. Therefore, a long subject line is inadvertently ensuring your message gets lost. Further, your customers quickly decide what they will open and discard. They’re more likely to delete your message if it seems confusing or complicated, so make it bite-size and easy to digest. Experts recommend you keep your subject lines to 60 characters or less. No. 2: Spark urgency. Customers are most likely to open an email within 24 hours of receiving it. After that, they will likely assume it’s irrelevant or forget about it. So, you want to use language that inspires them to read it immediately. At the same time, be careful of
overusing all-caps and exclamation points; these are hallmark signs of spam, and your customers could mistake it as such. Further, if every email announces itself as your customer’s “last chance,” you’ll lose trust, and people will tune out. No. 3: Be specific. Research indicates that people are more likely to open personalized subject lines. So, when possible, address your customers directly with their name or the word “you.” Further, teasing information is risky and can leave people unmotivated to open the email and learn more. Provide details like the specific product or service on sale or how many hours or days an offer will last. For example, more people will find “Only 48 hours left in our sale” compelling than “Our sale ends soon.”
Learning to craft effective headlines won’t happen overnight, so give yourself time and room to make mistakes. One of your best resources is A/B testing: You develop two subject lines, send them to different customers, and then compare their performance. You’ll find what drives your customers to click by monitoring your metrics and adapting your approach.
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