The creepiest email subject line you will ever come across
Seriously! No wonder we are now USING Zomato!
Hey TimesCity,
Don’t know how else to say this but no matter how creepy this was, it made me open the email, so mission accomplished. For the record, I never used you.
I have mentioned time and again on this blog the importance of email marketing in an online business. I have also mentioned the importance of subject line when it comes to email marketing. Everything, at the end of the day will boil down to if people even opened your emails. Let me tell you 7 out of 10 email users mark “SPAM” after seeing the subject lines and also 85% of statistics are made as you write a blog post to make a case.
You could blast a million, non-contextual, spammy emails and claim that you are doing email marketing, but it’s more than that. The basics of email marketing before anything else, has to start with subject lines and TimesCity seem to have cracked this mystery.
Let’s “USE” the above example to define
7 things you must consider before deciding the subject line
1. Will I open this email?
Ask yourself this question before you freeze on your subject line. If this email would have come to you, would you have opened it, ignored it, deleted it or marked as spam. This will help you reject a lot of obvious ideas that are crossing your mind for subject lines of your next email marketing campaign and will urge you to think harder and maybe a little bit more creative.
2. Don’t write an essay
It’s very easy to get swayed and write flowery words in the subject line. You have to curb your inner wordsmith and save it for something else as it’s really important to keep the subject line as simple as possible for a large set of users to comprehend and compel them to open it. Yes! I am going to use the most cliche acronym of all time. KISS – Keep it Short & Simple. If you want some guidelines talk about 1 takeaway and less than 50 characters. That should do it. According to my personal experience, emails with 25-40 characters in the subject line had the highest click rates.
3. This. That. or Both?
When it’s an important email campaign it becomes necessary to hedge your risks and go out with different subject lines so that all is not lost. Try your luck with 3 different subject lines for the same email campaign with 3 database cuts and see how they perform to learn and execute in the future.
4. Concentrate on Sender’s name as well
Sender’s name is as important as the Subject Line. People start trusting sender’s name and it’s important for your brand to maintain consistency in multiple touch points as well. Sender’s name is as prominent as the subject line in the new inbox layout of gmail as well.
I dont know how ebay and courtyard marriot have their logos coming as display pictures from their email address. Still have to figure this out as it looks more prominent and credible than a usual “P” or “F” whatever your initial of the brand is.
5. Check out for obvious spam words
Email service providers have become smart to immediately realize obvious spam emails and have blacklisted certain words and type of subject lines to give the users a better experience. Subject lines with “Free Free Free” or with multiple exclamation marks or a subject line with all CAPS is bound to get the spam treatment.
Read more here about how to avoid spam filters
6. Personalize, once a while
At times, simply including the consumer’s first name will make him/her look up and notice as to what the email actually has in it for them.
Hey! They know my name!
7. Crowd Wisdom
Subject lines are usually decided at haste, minutes before sending that email out. With a communication as important and personal as email where you don’t want your audience to alienate you, it’s important to not be careless with it. Take a good amount of time in deciding the best subject line for the email. Note down 5 options after all the above checks and ask around for the best one for an unbiased opinion.
There is a lot more to email marketing but this is basically 101.
In the end, I just want to say
“The best subject lines tell what’s inside, the worst subject lines sell what’s inside”
Click here to read more about email marketing campaigns by Indian marketers
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