Unless you have a highly engaged and active consumer, usually the best way to get a person to open your email is through the subject line. While some say that the 'From Address' is also a factor, I have seen that the 'From Address' is pretty consistent across brands, without many updates or changes over time.
In an already overcrowded inbox, the subject line needs to stand out amongst the rest. Different subject lines work for different brands and different groups of people. You will never know what is working and what isn't unless you test.
There is no solid answer for what works best, so the best way to figure it out is to test. Split out your emails for test groups to see which works best. Send different subject lines to your active consumers over your inactive consumers. Differentiate your frequent buyers from those who haven't made a purchase in over a year. Every consumer is different, and therefore you need to market to them differently to lift engagement.
You should also test and know how your subject line displays amongst different browsers (don't forget about mobile smart phones). While you are testing your email amongst yourself or your company, send tests to all of your accounts (AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, etc.) and try to open on your smart phone to see how it renders.
With the holidays quickly approaching, retailers send more volume then ever - so why not test more often? The inbox has more clutter than usual, and you want to get noticed (and you also want to know WHY you may have gotten noticed over another brand). (Also check out the Retail Guide to the Holiday Season 2010 which just came out).
My tips and tricks;
- Do A/B test splits that have a specific element where you can clearly define why one outperformed the other
- Conduct both random splits of your list, as well as splitting out based on level of engagement and past activity
- Areas to test;
- Including the brand vs. no brand in the subject line
- Sense of Urgency
- Overall length
- Word Order (placing the offer in the beginning or end)
- Symbols & Characters (!, ..., ?)
- Personalization
- Capitalization
- Reference past results to drive future results
- Review past subject lines from last season and pick out your top performers. Re-use or build from those to conduct your tests
Sample Gmail Inbox
