December 9th, 2015
You've probably seen the data. You likely know that email marketing is one of the best digital marketing tactics out there.
After all:
- Email campaigns are capable of earning one forward for every 21 emails opened.
- About 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices, while 64% of decision-makers read their emails on mobile devices.
- And most important, email marketing is actually almost 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers.
But here's the thing that people don't often talk about: the ones that don't get opened. Although it is one of the most excellent marketing strategies out there, some digital media just doesn't cut it, and the reason is pretty simple -- the subject line.
Yesware recently conducted a study on subject lines and found that people are more likely to open their messages if certain things are included in the subject line. Here are a few things they found.
Try to Get a Call and Not a Meeting.
If you're trying to get a hold of someone, you should say in the subject line that you're trying to get a "call," rather than saying that you need to get some time on their "calendar," or some other such ways to phrase it. You see, the word "call" had a 62% open rate and a 35% reply rate. The word "calendar" had a 33% open rate and only a 10% reply rate.
Word Count Doesn't Matter.
If you think your subject line is too long and won't get read, think again. It turns out that subject line length doesn't really matter. Yesware's research examined data from two anonymous companies and found no specific pattern that points to a certain word count outperforming others.
Certain Keywords Perform Better.
As you may have expected, some specific keywords perform better than others, resulting in both high open and reply rates. For example, next, campaign, account, renewal, and marketing all have excellent open rates. However, commonly used words aren't nearly as effective. For example, introduction, local, and good all have lower open rates.
With these tips, you'll be able to start writing subject lines that not only get opened but get replied to.