White Paper on writing engaging email subject lines for your email marketing campaigns.

1. E-Mail Marketing:
Subject Line Secrets & Strategies
By Nathan Isaacs
Seven G Media
503-810-7013
nisaacs@sevengmedia.com
www.sevengmedia.com

2. Web: www.sevengmedia.com
Phone: 503-810-7013
Email: nisaacs@sevengmedia.com
Email marketing is an affordable, and measurable marketing tool for businesses looking to attract, retain,
and grow loyal customer bases. The Direct Marketing Association reports email marketing returns more
than $40 for every dollar spent. Businesses all around the world use email marketing to:
@ Increase Sales Revenue
@ Generate Sales Leads
@ Strengthen Customer Relationships
As a result, more than 294 billion e-mails are sent every day.* That would suggest there are also 294
billion e-mail subject lines flooding inboxes every day (including blank subject lines).
Nearly everyone has an email account and uses it on a regular basis. A report by Exact Target found 93
percent of e-mail users will subscribe to at least one commercial email per day. The report revealed 42
percent of those subscribers were likely to buy a company’s product after first signing up for a
permission-based email. That should be great news for your email marketing efforts, right? The study also
found that 17 percent of those receiving a permission-based email did not even bother opening the mail.
Research suggests email marketers have between 1 to 5 seconds to get the readers’ attention and induce
them to open the email to read more (and more importantly respond to your call to action).
Are you doing everything you can to make sure your emails are opened?
A subject line should be thought of as the headline of a news story. Look at these examples from the ABC
News website:†
@ Charlie Sheen's Top 15 Craziest Quotes
@ Sheen Ordered to Stay 100 Feet From Twin Sons
@ Woman Survives 100 MPH Ride on Car Hood
@ Court OKs Protests at Military Funerals
*
“Internet 2010 in numbers,” Royal Pingdom (http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/12/internet-2010-in-numbers)
†
ABC New website: http://abcnews.go.com March 2, 2011
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3. Web: www.sevengmedia.com
Phone: 503-810-7013
Email: nisaacs@sevengmedia.com
I don’t know about you, but I am tempted to click on the links to read more. I suspect you are, too. An
engaging subject line – like a newspaper’s headline – will draw the reader into opening and reading the
email. “When the subject lines works, good things happen,” said Alex Williams, senior digital strategist
with Trendline Interactive in Portland.‡ What follow’s next is a break down to the process of writing an
engaging subject line.
Length
The length for subject lines allowed by Gmail on a web browser (85 characters) varies from the length
seen on Apple’s iPhone display (31 characters). So making your subject line succinct is imperative. This
will especially be true as consumers move more and more to using their smart phones, even when they are
near a desktop or laptop. There is no hard-fast rule, but keeping your subject lines between 5-7 words (45-
50 characters) will help avoid text being cut off. In the newspaper industry, back when space was at a
premium and printing press type was set by hand, there was an expression that you shouldn’t use an M’s
worth of space when an N would do. For your email marketing, you should compensate for the lack of
subject line space with strong, active words that offer the reader value. This includes avoiding
unnecessary words, including branding that may or may not be needed. You should get to the point,
perhaps even start with the point (Save $100 on your …). If your subject line was too long and you’ve
were building to a climax, the reader’s browser may turn that $100 to an ellipsis (…) so the recipient
never gets to see it.
Content
The subject line should clearly state what your reader can expect from your email, how they will benefit
or what action you want them to take as a result of reading the email. State a clear benefit.
Williams, who lectured on this topic to American Marketing Association professionals in late February,
suggests a subject line’s benefits typically have two of the following characteristics:
@ Curiosity
@ Urgency
@ Relevance
@ Value
= CURVE
@ Emotion
And Williams contends that successful subject lines have at least one of either the relevance or value
characteristics.
Segment
When possible you should segment your emails and their subject lines, too. We come in contact with so
many people and products on a daily basis that it is difficult for your message not to get lost in the
shuffle. According to one market research firm, someone living in a city is estimated to see more than
5,000 ad messages per day. So brush up on your database skills and use what you know about the reader
to personalize the subject line. This could be as simple as sending a female-centric email (and subject
line) to only females in your email databases. Research shows that the more personalized an email is, the
higher the response rates.
‡
Williams spoke to the American Marketing Association’s Oregon chapter on Feb. 23, 2011 in a lecture entitled “The Art & Science of Effective
Email Subject Lines."
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4. Web: www.sevengmedia.com
Phone: 503-810-7013
Email: nisaacs@sevengmedia.com
Avoid Trickery
Your subject line should be honest and direct, reflecting the content inside the email. Don’t trick the
reader into opening your email. This is illegal in some states. It can also anger the reader to unsubscribe
from your messages, report you as a spammer, and then tell about the experience to their friends via social
networks. Along these lines, avoid trying to be funny. You may be funny and have a great idea for a
humorous idea, but such attempts too often are misinterpreted or walk too fine a line between humorous
and bad taste. See the Kenneth Cole example below. If you insist on a humorous subject line, test it first
inside the office and with a test sample of readers. And finally, don’t ask yes or no questions in your
subject line unless the answer is a definite yes.
KISS (Keep it simple stupid)
Your subject line should be written with language that the reader can quickly digest. This includes how
you format the subject line or use punctuation. Subject lines in all caps can be hard on the eyes, while also
being labeled as spam by filters. Be judicious in the use of punctuation such as exclamation points,
question marks or using + or = and other symbols as either shorthand or fillers/spacers. Finally, proofread
your subject line before hitting the send button. Incorrect grammar or misspelled words in a subject line
easily damage your credibility and your offer.
Inspiration
To help inspire your creative juices, you can tap into
Google’s keywords services, including the Wonder
Wheel function you can use (found on the left side of the
browser on the search engine results page.
You can use your website analytic tool, such as Google
Analytics, to see what keywords drove people to your
website and specific pages on your site. You also can tap
Google's Wonder Wheel tool
into what has worked in past email campaigns.
You can track Google or Twitter trends and, when appropriate and relevant to your business, integrate
such a trend with your campaign. For example, referencing directly or indirectly a vuvuzela (those
annoying horns popular during last summer’s soccer World Cup) may work if you are selling sporting
gear, but not if you are selling flowers or real
estate. Below is an example of when the trend
(#Cairo) in early February was not relevant to the
business (fashion house Kenneth Cole). Kenneth
Cole took quite a bit of negative commentary
from the social community and mainstream
media when they posted the tweet. I don’t know
if there is a connection, but the Wall Street
Journal reported on Feb. 28, 2011 that Kenneth
Cole’s CEO and the public company’s board had
“mutually agreed” she resign and be replaced. Kenneth Cole ill-advised Feb. 3, 2011 tweet
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5. Web: www.sevengmedia.com
Phone: 503-810-7013
Email: nisaacs@sevengmedia.com
And finally when in a jam, you can use the Cosmo Technique as suggested by the folks at
Copyblogger.com: Write your subject lines using the Cosmo cover page teasers as a template. For
example, “100% Hotter Sex” as a template would be “100% ________ ________.” I don’t know if the
folks at ABC News were using the Cosmo technique when they crafted a couple of their news headlines
(100 mph speed, and 15 stupid Sheen-isms)
Test
You should test different subject lines and lengths before sending to your whole list. Testing allows you
to identify the words, phrases, pitches and styles that appear to work with your customers. For example,
pay close attention to subject-line performance over your last several campaigns. Identify which subject
lines drove the results you wanted – beginning with the open rate (defined as number of emails opened
divided by the number of emails sent) – and include them in future campaigns. Test your messages
through a number of email accounts (Gmail, iPhone, Outlook and so forth) to ensure they look good
through all mainstream email clients.
Williams also has developed his “Rapid Subject Line Testing,” which includes the following steps:
1. Identify your most active email respondents (Those that have clicked through an e-mail’s call to
action within the last three to six campaigns).
2. Pull a random sample from this group. How big that sample is depends on the number in your e-
mail lists, but the bigger the better. The website Creative Research Systems offers a free sample
size calculator.§
3. Perform a split test with the subject line candidates, and make sure the subject lines are really
different.
4. Send to sample audience and wait for results. If your campaign is built around a coupon or other
time-sensitive sales event, wait at least three hours otherwise the wait could be a day or two.
5. Send winning subject line to rest of your email list.
6. Most importantly, document the test (sample size, test subject lines, and results).
Lists
Be sure to keep your email lists up-to-date and always include a way for people to easily unsubscribe in
all your email campaigns. Unsolicited email quickly becomes spam and can be damaging to your business
reputation. Know when to say when; remove inactive email accounts from your active lists. If you are
sending emails on a regular basis (once a week, once a month) then inactive is more than three months.
Once removed from your primary lists, you should see a slight boost in your open rates. You will also
have a new list you can target for reengagement with your business.
Fair Winds & Following Seas – Nathan
About Seven G Media (www.sevengmedia.com):
Seven G Media is a veteran-owned business and marketing consulting agency located in Beaverton, Oregon. The company was
founded in 2010 by Nathan Isaacs. Seven G, or seven generations, is a reference to the Native American custom when making
tribal decisions to consider how those decisions will affect the tribe seven generations in the future. Nathan uses the term to
express his belief that we have a moral obligation to be better environmental stewards, as well as his desire to provide consulting
solutions that offer immediate and long-term success for his clients.
§
Creative Research Systems: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
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