There is a VERY simple email marketing tactic that can be the biggest deciding factor between a successful and ineffective email marketing initiative. The secret? Developing the RIGHT subject line for an email message.

How often have you bought a magazine at the grocery store because of the headline on the front? Or watched a tv show or movie because you liked the trailer?

How often have you received emails with subject lines like these:

“MAKE $60,000 EVERY WEEK GUARANTEED!”
“EXPLOSIVE STOCK PICK AT $0.45!!!!”
“Melt the fat off!”
“THIS IS NOT SPAM!”

How often do you open them? I get hundreds like this every day… and I automatically delete them without reading them. So how many of your legitimate emails do you think may end up in someone’s SPAM folder, or are mistakenly deleted by your subscribers who read your subject lines and assume it must be spam?

Jupiter research indicates that 35 percent of e-mail users open their messages simply because of what is contained in the subject line – so create relevant subject lines. How?

The best way to create relevance is to personalize the message. This can be as simple as creating basic salutations to more complex customized content. Here are the top three ways to personalize a message:

1. Basic Personalization : Include the recipient’s first name in the subject line and in the copy salutation—and if it’s a business-to-business campaign, include the recipient’s company name and/or industry.

2. Attribution Based Personalization : Customize the full e-mail copy based on the recipient’s attributes. For example, include examples or case studies based on the recipient’s industry or vertical.

3. Purchased Based Personalization : Write sections of the e-mail copy based on the recipient’s purchase history.

These extra steps may add a little extra time to implement, however I think you’ll see the upside with the increase in your open rates (and hopefully, in turn, your response rates!)

In my next post, I will discuss other methods of creating relevant subject lines!