I’ve just read some interesting research about the best and worst possible words you can use in your email marketing subject lines, but before we get into that, I’d like you to try an exercise.

Every single person reading this blog gets multiple marketing emails every single day; on average, 416 commercial messages enter our inboxes daily. For just one day, I’d like you to take notice of what ones you actually read, and what the subject lines of those emails are. If you choose not to open an email, deleting it unread, take a moment to consider why that is. This type of mindfulness will make you a better marketer.

Email Marketing: Subject Lines Matter!

Now, onto to the research – which may in many ways mirror your own observations! Alchemy Worx, a team that produces and markets a subject line analysis app, finds that subject lines that promise the reader a laugh or good news are opened the most often. Simply using the word Jokes increased the open rate by 117%.

Interest killing words are those you’d associate with the hard sell: discount, budget, sale and unlimited all cause readers to delete emails unread. The seemingly innocuous word ‘half’ is a real disaster: open rates decreased by more than 27% when ‘half’ appears in the subject line.

Not discussed in the research but still relevant to our cause of helping you connect with your customers more effectively are the list of words that will get your email relegated to the SPAM bin. Free is one of the top offenders here, as are any number of words that could possibly be associated with male enhancement medications. Also worth avoiding? The phrase “You registered with a partner” which indicates to spam filters that your mailing is not, in fact, opt-in.

Email marketing continues to be a powerful tool for today’s business owner – as long as you’re really aware of how your messaging appears to the reader. If you need help crafted messages they won’t be able to resist opening, give us a call. Our world class creative team will be happy to help!