Improve Your Email Open Rates With These Subject Line Tests
by: Karen Scharf, Small Business Marketing Consultant
If you do any type of email marketing, you know that all your effort is wasted if your messages aren’t getting opened. Whenever we’re brought in to analyze an underperforming email marketing program, the very first thing we look at is the open rate. Why? Because nothing else can happen – no click-throughs, no forwards to a friend, no sales – if the message is never opened. Depending on the industry you’re in and the type of campaigns you run, your average open rate is going to vary. A good rule of thumb is to aim for a 20% open rate. And the best way to improve your open rate is by improving your subject line. Here are a few tests I suggest you implement and see how they affect your open rates:
Test the word “Free”
Many of my clients are afraid to use the word Free in their subject line for fear of ending in the spam folder. In fact, most ISPs have done away with using Free as a spam filter trigger word. And, since most copywriters will tell you that Free is one of the most powerful words in the English language, I’d definitely suggest you give it a try. But don’t trick your readers. If you aren’t offering anything for free, don’t use the word!
Test your subject line length
Remember, not everyone reads their email in an email client. We’ve got the iPhone and Blackberries and Palms and all sorts of handheld devices – most of which truncate subject lines. Many web mail clients also cut off subject lines – and there is no industry standard to determine the number of characters that will be displayed. Some experts say you should use no more than 50 characters, but I advise using 35 characters or less (especially if your list is heavy B2B) to guarantee display in most mobile devices.
Test the personalization
Psychological tests prove that humans are naturally drawn to their own names, so try including your reader’s name in the subject line. But be careful with this tactic. Over-personalization or forced personalization can look spammy, which will end up reducing your open rates. Try additional forms of personalization, including location, company name, product types – there are tons of possibilities that you can pull from your customer database.
Test the urgency
My copywriting coach would have my head if I submitted a campaign without an urgency factor – that’s how powerful this technique is. A few ways to include urgency in your subject line might be:
- Only 36 hours left to save
- Good for one week only
- Last chance to grab this special offer
- One day exclusive offer
When testing urgency, you want to have good coordination with your send times and your web technology to avoid the “boy who cried wolf” syndrome. The bottom line is: avoid the trap that many small business marketers fall into. Don’t treat your email subject line as a last-minute thought, something to slap together once all your email creative is complete. Subject lines have a huge (many would argue, the largest) impact on the success of your email marketing campaign. It’s worth the time and effort to get them right.
