What is the most effective email header?

Hi Everyone,

When marketing via email, what do you find to be the most successful subject header where recipients open the email rather than discarding them?

Best wishes to you all

Matt

These subject headings usually get opened.

It depends on your target market and your relationship with your list. There's no "one size fits all" answer.

Take a look at the emails you receive over the next few days/weeks and see which ones grab your attention and which ones trigger an automatic press of the delete key without even opening the email.

Then you've got to keep the content interesting otherwise people won't keep reading the email even if they've opened it.

Or talk to an expert like Julian Wellings.

@Trevor - thanks for the name check!

@Matthew - good question but before thinking about subject line I'd recommend ensuring a key condition is met. That is the issue of permission. If you are sending to people who have asked to hear from you you're far more likely to get an open than if they haven't opted in.

Beyond that I recommend subject lines which sell what's inside and are likely to be relevant to the recipient. 

1. Don't use bland subjecvt lines like: "Newsletter" or "Acme Widgets August Newsletter". 

2. Including your brand name in the subject line can help so this could be the static element followed each edition by a dynamic element. Eg. "Acme Landscaping - 10 Tips for a perfect summer garden"

3. The subject line should be no more than 60-70 characters to avoid truncation in email programs. So if including your brand name is going to make it too long remove it but ensure it is in the "from" name of the email.

4. Avoid words which may trigger spam filters.  Eg. "Limited time" "Free offer" and so on. Lots of help on this if you search Google.

5. Provocative subject lines can work well providing they're not over used. So something like "You're going to lose all your data..." might work for an IT suport business. When they open it there's an article about data backups. In your case you might have an article about corporate manslaughter and a subject line "How to avoid ending up in jail" or "How to avoid a 5 year stretch in jail".

6. Trevor's advice is good. Monitor what people are sending you. Also monitor your newsletters and see which ones got good open rates. Was it the subject line or some other factor?  And if you want to get really smart try A/B split testing, using two different subject lines and then sending to the winning subject line. More on this here.

Hope this helps!

Free sex = spam/junk folder.

Hi Matthew

Agree with Julian on his comments above...

Amazingly, I've seen a trend recently towards emails that state....

- more info required....

- when we spoke last week....

All marketing emails from people that I've never met, this might achieve opens, but it won't win them any fans.

An excellent way is to A/B split test your marketing too.

It is determined by your focus on audience and your connection with your record. There is no one dimension suits all response. Take a look at the electronic mails you get over the next few days/weeks and see which ones pick up your interest and which ones induce an automated media of the remove key without even starting the e-mail.

I find that if the subject is relevant to the customer then it is more likely to be opened. Our last e-mail campaign had a simple message that told the reader what we off, to whom we offer it and where. It read simply "Internet Services for Scottish Businesses". We got a lot of good quality responses because our e-mail targetted the right people for the services we were offering. It could equally be "Health and Safety Training for Yorkshire Businesses".

Gary

Good thoughts everyone, very thought provoking.

Somehow though I don't think "Free Sex" will work?! haha

Maybe something like "boost your inspection ratings" if it was for a hotel or restaurant?

Or turn it into a "How to" statement, eg. "How to boost your inspection ratings".
Or the more provocative "How to avoid getting prosecuted", or "How to achieve a 5 star inspection rating" (or whatever the rating scale is).

From my limited survey (monthly Mailchimp newsletter) I used one header that achieved a far greater open rate - it was simply 'Ooops - HMRC' (The topic was emergency loans to fund HMRC payment)

I don't quite know how to recapture that, though.