Can email Subject lines affect CTR
Marketers would not stop at anything to have their presence felt. They always strive hard to achieve the right marketing mix to communicate with their customers. But, most advertisements tend to shout at customers and intrude their privacy. E-mail marketing is a non-intrusive way of communicating with your customers and captures their attention. Many people believe that the golden period for e-mail marketing is over and it has lost its effectiveness. But, a staggering 144 billion e-mails are sent across every day that speaks volumes about the popularity of this channel. The trick lies in doing it correctly.
Finding the right method
The success of e-mail marketing is determined in various ways. The most reliable one is the CTR (Click through Rate) that measures the number of people who clicked on a particular link. A high CTR improves the prospects of conversion and translates into more business for your company. But, companies get carried away in the pursuit for higher CTR and often resort to steps like including swanky images or glorifying their products. But, they miss one of the simplest and most essential features of e-mail marketing; a good subject line.
Back to the basics
An e-mail without a good subject line is like a desolate child searching for his destination. Subject lends a personality to your e-mail and captures the attention of your readers. It gives them an idea about the content of your e-mail. An impressive subject line creates a first impression and encourages your customers to click on the mail. There is no dearth of ways in which you can make your subject line more potent. Let us look at a few things to do and not to do in a subject line.
The art and science of a good subject line
Make your subject line responsive to your reader needs: An e-mail that addresses the problems of your readers and offers them solutions is more likely to get a click. Demographics and buying habits of your clients will help you in customizing your e-mails and offering solutions to them. An interesting way to do it is by including special symbols that add to your message. For instance, having a Yacht symbol for e-mails pertaining to yacht holidays.
Keep it short and simple: Don’t be superfluous with word while writing subject lines for youre-mail. It is advisable to keep the length of your subject line within 50 words to make it easier for the clients to read them. Verbosity in subject lines often fails to produce the desired results. For instance, a good subject line for a low-fat diet supplement would be “A delicious and healthy way to reach your ideal weight”
Personalization may not be a good idea: Adding the name of your recipient in the subject of your e-mail may seem to be the right thing to do, but it might work against you. As recent research has shown that personalized mails trigger spam filter and may not reach your clients at all. If you still want to use names, make sure you do it creatively. An innovative way of personalizing your e-mails is by including customer preferences. For instance, an online book retailer can send this mail “Dear John, your wish list item ‘The Seven Habits of highly effective people’ is now available.”
Don’t make your subject line look like a sales pitch: An overt sales language can put-off your clients and fail to even achieve a click for your e-mails. The purpose of e-mail marketing is to kindle the interest of your readers and not to close a deal immediately. An understanding of this basic fact will help you to construct better subject lines. Refrain from writing mails like “The Abs crunch machine will help you to lose 30 pounds in a month!”
Make your e-mail locally relevant: Local search is the future of Internet marketing and E-mail marketing has an important role to play here. Local search and e-mail marketing blend perfectly with each other as both of them are accessed by users generally on their mobile phones. A subject line that emphasizes local search will surely achieve a higher CTR. Including a map of your business location in your e-mail will make it relevant for local search purpose.