In the world of digital commerce, email-marketing is essential for the success of practically every business on the market. With Helpfull, business owners and marketers can test their headlines in front of hundreds of panelists.
In the world of digital commerce, email-marketing is essential for the success of practically every business on the market. There are a variety of reasons why email marketing has remained a relevant form of advertising for nearly three decades:
These days, most email campaigns can be run almost entirely by automation. The ability to plan and set schedules for content dissemination also allows businesses to engage with their consumers on a regular basis. Emails drive heavy webflow traffic, and they’re often the most immediate way a business can introduce a sale or promotion to their customers.
In order for the emails to be effective, the intended recipient has to click and open it up; for this to happen, you must draw them in with an engaging and relevant title.
Even if the consumer is actively looking for your content, they have to search for it through a sea of distracting email headlines and product offers. This is why many marketers choose to test their email titles with a consumer focus group. Without an engaging title that attracts the consumer’s attention, the success of the email marketing campaign is significantly diminished.
Before we can take a look at the ways to improve and increase open rates, we must first look at what makes an effective email subject line - one that won't get us caught in the spam filters.
Imagine your email subject line is a phrase being shouted at the top of someone’s lungs over a crowd of other voices inside of a bustling street market. You’re looking to draw your audience’s attention away from all of the other bright and distracting stalls. Your email list is bound to overlap with those of your competitors - so you have to consider your audience before you send your emails.
In order to cut through all of the noise that is otherwise preventing you from making a sale, you’ll need to adapt some of the traditional psychological tricks employed in traditional marketing efforts.
The techniques listed above are tried and true methods for increasing the open-rate for your emails. After developing a series of test titles that utilize different elements of these marketing techniques, you’re ready to start surveying.
For our first set of tests, we posed as a cosmetics brand looking to announce an extra-special 30% off store-wide sale. Due to the limited-time nature of this deal, it’s important that we’re able to grab our audiences’ attention with an email subject that is captivating.
Using the techniques outlined prior, we developed eight “test subjects” to run in a split option survey:
Of the eight options, the largest percentage of the audience preferred the most bold and energetic subject line, “30% OFF STORE-WIDE SALE - ENDS MIDNIGHT TONIGHT”.
Our test audiences overwhelmingly preferred the headlines they felt were direct, informative, and inspired urgency. The use of all capital letters was found to be more effective in expressing the magnitude and veracity of the sale; capping the subject lines off with a deadline urges consumers to act quickly.
Moving away from sales promotion, we’re now looking to bring awareness to our brand. We’ve got a new line of sneakers we would like to advertise to our consumers; due to the transient nature of sneaker trends, most of our sales are going to come within the first few weeks following the initial product drop.
To find the most effective subject line for our announcement email, we’ve asked another 100 Helpfull panelists to consider the following test titles:
Now, it's time to send our survey out to our email list - and wait for the results to start rolling in.
As was the case with our first survey, consumers were most drawn to the title they felt was the most direct and relevant. “BRAND NEW Sneaker Line Dropping TODAY - Shop Now!” not only captures audience attention with the strategic use of capital letters - it urges consumers to click through and purchase our product immediately. Don’t shop tomorrow, don’t shop next week - shop now.
For organizations that don’t have a product to sell, email marketing still serves many important functions. Perhaps the most important function email marketing serves for not-for-profit and charity organizations is the ability to solicit donations from your customers.
Asking for consumers to donate money can be a very contentious act. Most consumers will feel averse to anything that asks them to donate; such one-sided transactions can be a very hard sell. Testing the effectiveness of your subject lines before you start your marketing campaign can really improve your email open rate in a dramatic way.
For our final survey, we told our Helpfull panelists we represented a political organizing group that promotes exotic pet law reform. Taking on the role of our email subscribers, our Helpfull panelists were asked to tell us what subject line is the “most likely to inspire you to give our email a read”. We tested the following subject lines before an audience of 200 pollsters:
It’s unsurprising that our subject line with the best open rate was one that didn’t directly solicit money from the recipient.
Our email subject was able to plant the idea of donation into our consumer’s head without raising the alarms associated with directly asking them for money. We want to make sure our title inspired our consumers to learn more about our cause, but did not judge them for the amount of money they were able to donate to our cause. When we place less stress or onus on our customers, they will be far more likely to open our emails.
With Helpfull testing, we’ve received real, concrete results that prove the effectiveness of our email subject lines. The advice we’ve been given by an audience of hundreds of real consumers has given us the confidence we need to continue developing bold, effective email titles; titles that will drive our open-rate through the roof.
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