All About Email Marketing
Play The Game of Save, Delete or Read...and Win!
How to Make Your Subject Line Count.
Did you notice how many emails you had in your inbox this morning? What thought processes did you go through (in a matter of seconds) while you tried to decide on which ones to read and which ones to delete? A variety of business offers, newsletters you opted in to, friends and family saying hello, coworkers responding to previous emails and of course, Spam. It's all sounding
familiar right? I had 67 emails in my inbox this morning, much the same items (okay, plus the dictionary.com word of the day.).
Our inboxes all look remarkably the same, and we all go through the exact same game of Save, Read or Delete when deciding which emails are worthy of our attention. What helps us play that game? Who the email is from and what it's about.
Your email subject line is much like a tradeshow exhibit.
Okay, so having just come from the ClickZ conference, tradeshows are on my mind. But seriously, at a tradeshow, you have 3
seconds or less to grab someone's attention and get them to stop. Most tradeshow exhibitors put up bold graphics, lots of buzz
words and sometimes even roving balloon makers and magicians at their booth to stand out from the crowd. You are given
essentially the same timeframe (or less) in your subject line. And it's not as easy to insert a poodle made out of balloons. You're
stuck with just plain old words to convey a feeling, a desire and inspire an action…opening your email.
How do you figure out your target audience and what captures them? Ultimately one of the best people to consult is YOU. Consider your own inbox; consider the emails you receive and what compels you to open them. So let's practice this a little, and we'll run through some of dos and don'ts that exist in your own inbox. (Okay, in this case, MY inbox.)
To personalize or not to personalize, that is the question.
As a kid, I loved finding anything with my name on it. Especially since the specific spelling of my name (Jeannie) didn't appear very often on the name-labeled pencils, notepads, and key chains, I was always pleased as punch to see my name personalized on anything. Of course, as an eight year old, you have no idea that the company just wants to sell pencils and they are more likely to do that when they put someone's name on it. Does the theory hold true with email? Well, that's an interesting question…and I'd definitely be interested in the answer. (Have any stories to share? I'd love to include them in my newsletter.)
But there is a right and wrong way to personalize a subject line. I've grabbed a few examples from my inbox to illustrate what I mean:
Example 1: Personalization that's not personal.
From: Dr. Ralph Wilson
Subject: Jeannie, WMT #117, Commission hijacking, 10/9/02.
Huh? Is this supposed to speak to me? The idea of personalization in an email is to speak one-to-one with a person…and that extends to the subject line. In the case of this particular email, the "From" line is directly from a person, but the subject line comes across as a bunch of gibberish. It's definitely not making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and I would classify this as a wrong way to personalize your subject line. If you're going to take the personalized route, be sure your subject line is also personal.
Example 2: Personal personalization, but who is it from?
From: TheGrok@grokdotcom.com
Subject: Jeannie, are you qualifying visitors?
Well, TheGrok@grokdotcom.com, that's a good question. The subject line speaks to me…it asks me a question, and I just know that question is going to be answered inside that email. But, how personal is it when it doesn't come from a specific person? Once again, personalization works best when it's used in a personal format in both the From and the Subject fields.
The idea of personalization isn't to show your customers how cool your technology is (ironic coming from someone who works for a technology company, isn't it?). It's to show that you recognize them as a person, an individual, not just a number in your mass mailing. Used correctly, your customers might actually feel they have an established relationship with you, not a mailing number stamped on their forehead.
And the subject of the subject line should be…
Putting aside cool and creative ways to grab people's attention; let's not forget what the Subject line is. The job of a subject line is to inform. It's supposed to tell someone what is included inside the email, not matter how creatively you wrap it. How much can you tell in eight words or less?
Recently, I received an email from my brother. It was one of those fun little two-minute personality tests that will tell you all about yourself. Just from the subject line (and the "From" line, as it came from a family member), I was able to garner a number of facts about what was contained in that email. The subject line read:
FW: A personality test: Jim scored a 46!!
Just from those few words I learned (in 5 seconds or less) this about the included email:
1. It was forwarded from my brother, (Jim) who never forwards things to me.
2. My brother took the test, because his score was mentioned in the subject line.
3. It must be fun or worthwhile, or he wouldn't have taken the test and forwarded it to me.
All that in 8 words or less. I opened it and took the test (scored a 47) and then proceeded to add MY score to the subject line, and forwarded it to my friends. Had I received an email from him that said, "FW: test" …I may have been less intrigued to check it out.
A good testing method: the 4 U's
At the ClickZ Conference last month, I attended a presentation about copywriting and the "4 U's" were mentioned in regards to testing out your subject line. I thought it was pretty useful, so here you go.
The 4 U's: Urgent, Unique, Ultra-Specific and Useful.
The idea is to rate your subject line (or have someone else do it for you) on those 4 items, on a scale of 1 to 5. The idea is to make
your subject line speak to your customer, and convince them to take the action you want.
As an example, let's take my subject line and see how I did. I started out with "Let's Talk Subject Line." On the boring scale of 1 to
10, it didn't rank very high. I tried out the 4 U's...my subject line failed dismally. So I started upgrading it, changing it, playing with
words and continued to run it through test until I finally ended up with "Play the game of Save, Read or Delete… and win." I think
it tests pretty well, but whether you read this or not will decide if I did play the game, and win.
After the Newsletter Was Sent: Follow-Up On My Subject Line
Fortunately (for me) the subject line (in the above article) did a fairly good job at meeting it's goal - to get you, my readers, to open
my email and spend time reading my article…and oh my goodness, even respond to it!
So I put my own subject line to the test, and here's how I did:
Out of our readership, 46% opened our newsletter. And according to our new Mailing Effectiveness Rating , I received a rating of 150.65 on my mailing, when the
average EmailLabs user received a score of 100. So, I would say based on industry averages, my subject line did fairly well at its
objective - to get people to open the newsletter. Then it's left to my writing to get to them to read the article, but that's another story
completely.
And along the veins of sharing how I did with you, I thought I would also share some of the comments and stories I received as well.
"I thought your article was informative. It gave me some insight on how to attract more attention to my emails. Before I
read your article your subject line made me think of what I do every day while checking my email, although its 99%
delete. Your subject actually made me want to read your article so I suppose it did its job."
Melvin Thomas
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"Your subject line is great but it really doesn't describe your article--Focus not on save, delete, etc. but on how to write a
great subject line! I kept waiting to find that one!
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This was passed on to me by a friend who subscribes to eMarketing and I am now intrigued enough to subscribe myself.
Thanks for sharing your ideas! I will pass this on to my students who are learning email."
Jane Allerton
CHS Information Systems
Instructor
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"Your subject line was genius. As a not-for-profit, the medium of internet/email is a godsend because of the investment
cost - vs. full print, advertising and direct mail costs. My challenges are your challenges, pegged with the greatest
precision in your article. Thank you for the great examples."
Dawn Grosvenor
Vice President of Marketing
The Science Place
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"I personally use the subject line extensively. I also use the Rules Wizard in Outlook to automatically sort my mail, so
certain spam-related words are automatically dumped, and other certain keywords help mail get placed in a directory
where I'll be sure to check it!"
Patrick Villeila
CADSoft Consulting
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"The paradox of your recent article about personalization in emails made me laugh. Very enjoyable except for one thing --
the writing is in the "first" person, with lots of stuff about you, yet no authors' by-line is contained in the essay. I would
EmailLabs 4 eMarketing Articles
think that your personalization argument extends to these articles as well."
Andrew Colbeck
Xguru.com
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"Your From line is not personal, but would I open it if it were from Jeannie? That would look more like SPAM to me. But
eMailLabs is part of the professional relationship. Once I had recognized the From, I look to see if the Subject line is
interesting to me… The Subject line, as you well know, is worth the extra effort. Now if I could only convince my boss. "
Michael King
So thanks for everyone who wrote in with their opinions, thoughts and stories! It was definitely informative (and entertaining) to see how you reacted to my subject line.