MarketingSherpa is a wonderful resource for marketers and is constantly sharing great research.
Since many of our clients use email marketing, we wanted to share some findings MarketingSherpa revealed as the big takeaways of email marketing subject lines.
Takeaway #1. Show value in the first two words
Top subject-line performers showed that pushing the value of a particular newsletter in the first two words was optimal. You need to research what your optimal first two words should be:
These are the 10 top-performing subject lines in the 12-month time period studied:
- Top 12 [Email Newsletter] Mistakes
- Simple [Email Link] Change Lifts Clicks
- Best Time to Send Email: Test Results
- 6 Actions to Lift Clickthroughs: New Data
- Your Copy of Annual Email Study Results Enclosed
- HTML vs Text: Which Works Better?
- Newsletter Design Exclusive Data
- Email Audit PDF: How-to & Checklist
- How to Conduct Email Surveys
Takeaway #2. Find the right ‘trigger words’
Sherpa found that certain words or types of words, by themselves, trigger response as much as or more than subject-line length. Being punchy is *often* important to the art of writing subject lines, but including the right words from start to finish is more integral.
“A trigger can be a name, the use of numbers, the number of characters in the subject line, the use of an industry phrase, or the appearance of an unusual word,” Sherpa explains. “Subject lines also need to stay within brand guidelines. It’s easy to get a high open rate by using sensationalistic language. But if you are not careful, you can harm your brand in the process.”
What about subject-line length? The top four Email Sherpa performers (see Takeaway #1) were between 31 and 41 characters (including spaces); pretty short.
Takeaway #3. Watch the hard sell
Case Studies also indicate the e-retailers that minimized hard-sell language got better results. Newsletters are similar. Sherpa results suffered when the subject line seemed too self-promotional.
Takeaway #4. Hot brands work across sectors
Putting hot brand names into the subject line isn’t just for e-retailers. The top ContentBiz newsletter performer, for instance, was “Facebook App Tips”.
