Email Marketing Tips – It Starts With Your Subject

Posted by Steven Wagenheim on September 09, 2010 in Email Marketing, General, Marketing Articles

In the first installment of our series on email marketing, we questioned if email marketing was dead and pinpointed some of the mistakes that email marketers make. In this installment, we’re going to start picking apart the email marketing process starting with the content itself. More specifically, we’re going to focus on the subject of our emails.

Our email subject is the very first thing that your prospect sees. So a bad subject can detonate your whole email marketing campaign right off the bad. Problem is, many email marketers don’t know what a bad subject is. Many times, it’s not what they think.

Let me explain.

One of the biggest mistakes email marketers make, when deciding on a subject, is looking at the subjects that other marketers are using in THEIR emails and assuming that if THEY’RE using these subjects, they must be working.

But think about it. Do you have any idea what the open rates are of these emails? Unless you can personally check the stats of these people (don’t believe half of what they claim) you really have no way of knowing is a subject that somebody else uses is any good or not.

What will usually happen in this industry is that guru A will use a subject line and then everybody who receives this email in their in box will jump on the bandwagon and use the subject line too…not really knowing how effective it is.

An even bigger problem is that most people don’t know WHY the guru in question used that particular subject line. It might have been something tailored to his specific list that might not work for you. Or, it could have simply been an experiment…and a failed one at that.

You’ll never know.

Plus, you’re basing your use of the subject line on your own bias. If you don’t personally like the subject line, you won’t use it. If you do like it, you will use it. What you fail to understand is that regardless of whether you like the subject or not, you still have no idea how effective it will be.

Truth is, there is no ONE subject line that will work for everybody. Every list is different. Every niche is different. And while I don’t like absolutes, there are a few things that I firmly believe every subject line should have…not all in one of course. Naturally, the more things you can include, the better.

At the top of the list is “What’s in it for the person opening the email?”

A subject line that promises some kind of benefit if the email is opened is likely to get opened more often than not. After all, the people on your list want to know what’s in it for them.

So, if you have a list on traffic generation and you send an email with this subject line…

“3 Free Killer Traffic Generation Tips Inside”

Don’t you think there is a good chance that the person on your list will open the email, especially if they’re on your list because they want to learn about traffic generation?

This is one type of subject that works well, “The Benefit”. There are others.

We’ll get into those in our next installment.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly.