Today on the Demand Gen Pod, Episode 21, The podcast highlights the significance of **crafting effective email subject lines** to boost open rates, focusing on segmentation and captivating attention with concise, relevant, and intriguing lines. It stresses utilizing personalization, dynamic content, clarity, and intrigue while optimizing for mobile devices and avoiding spam triggers. **A/B testing** is recommended for ongoing improvement. Emojis should be sparingly used, considering cultural sensitivities, and personalization with data-driven insights positively impacts open rates, leading to enhanced email marketing. The transcript underscores the importance of **email subject line optimization** through various strategies such as segmentation, attention-grabbing techniques, personalization, and mobile optimization while avoiding spam triggers. It suggests ongoing testing, particularly through A/B testing, to refine subject lines continuously. Incorporating emojis strategically and being mindful of cultural differences in email content deployment are also vital for **enhancing engagement**. Personalization based on data-driven insights is highlighted as a key factor in boosting open rates, emphasizing the continuous improvement of email marketing effectiveness. The podcast delves into the key elements of **creating compelling email subject lines**, including segmentation, attention-grabbing tactics, personalization, and mobile optimization. It stresses the necessity of avoiding spam triggers and the benefits of ongoing testing, notably through A/B testing, for refining subject lines. The discussion touches on incorporating emojis and considering cultural sensitivities during email deployment to improve engagement. Personalization with data-driven insights is emphasized for its positive impact on open rates and **overall email marketing performance**. The transcript emphasizes the value of **crafting engaging email subject lines** through segmentation, attention-grabbing techniques, personalization, and mobile optimization while steering clear of spam triggers. The importance of continuous improvement through A/B testing is highlighted, alongside strategic emoji usage and cultural considerations in email campaigns. Personalization using data-driven insights is lauded for its ability to significantly increase open rates, underlining the role of consistent testing and experimentation in maximizing **email marketing effectiveness**.
Summary notes from Episode 21:
???? **Creating Effective Email Subject Lines** **Subject lines determine email
open rates **Importance of segmentation for target audience **Elements of
compelling subject lines: personalization, humor, curiosity, urgency
**Balancing clarity and intrigue **Personalization through recipient data
**Relevance and value for recipients **Optimal length: 40-60 characters
**Mobile optimization **Avoid all caps and excessive punctuation
Full Transcript:
00:01
Welcome to the demand gen pod. My name is Ryan. Today we are talking about creating effective subject lines for emails and email subject lines are your second line of attack in email marketing, and they determine whether or not somebody will open an email. The first line of attack is segmentation, okay? So if you send it to the wrong people, it doesn’t really matter how good your subject line is. If it’s the wrong group, it’s not going matter. So that’s why that’s there. But a well crafted subject line can really change and impact an email open and engagement, leading to higher conversions and customer interactions. So a few things that are important subject lines grab attention by being concise, relevant and intriguing. Again, that’s concise, relevant and intriguing to your segment, so keep that in mind.
00:45
Some key elements of compelling subject lines like personalization, humor, curiosity, urgency, and to stand out in crowded inboxes, businesses can use techniques like using emojis, asking questions, using statistics or numbers, and offering exclusive benefits. Balancing clarity and intrigue is also pretty important, so you can strike a balance by ensuring that sub clients accurately reflect the email content while also creating some degree of curiosity. And techniques like this could include using incomplete thoughts, teaser phrases, offering a hint of what’s inside, or creating a sense of mystery. For example, unlock the secret to weight loss join our webinar now there’s a caveat to this, which is that if you make it too vague, you might have a high open rate, but you’ll have a low click through rate.
01:37
So something that I think is really important when you’re crafting a subject line is to be thinking about is the subject line. And also don’t forget you have preheader text underneath that. So we’ll talk about that too, but with the subject line. Is the subject line relevant to the body copy of the email? Is it relevant to the action items within the email and the call to action itself inside of the email? If you are creating a disconnect between the subject line, which you’re trying to make unique and teaser or mysterious, if there’s a disconnect between that and what you’re actually trying to get somebody to do when they’re reading the email, then you’re going to see that you might have a strong open rate, but you may not have such a strong click through rate.
02:22
And so that’s something to keep in mind is that especially if you’re testing, you don’t necessarily be afraid to test. It’s okay to get things wrong, but as you’re testing, keep that in mind is that, does the entire experience grow as we change the subject line, or are we seeing a higher open rate but a lower click through rate? So something else to keep in mind. So what about personalization as well? So personalization enhances subject lines by addressing recipients by name or using their past purchase history or preferences. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be high name. You could use any data that you have on them to personalize the subject line. So let’s say that you were med spa and you could use the number of times that somebody has visited you in the last year.
03:09
Hey, you’ve seen us ten times in the last twelve months. That could be something along to drive an idea for a subject line. For example, other data points, location, recent interactions, special interests, they can also be leveraged. So again, just doesn’t have to be first name, although name is typically what’s going to happen. You can also, depending on the marketing automation tool, you can also use dynamic content in the subject line as well. So you could say, for example, again with the Medspa, if somebody has more than ten or, I don’t know, more than five visits in the last six months, then you could have one subject line. If it’s less than five visits, you could have a different subject line.
03:52
So you could send the same email content or have dynamic content within that email, depending on how complex you want it to be. But you could have the same email content with a different subject line depending on who is actually seeing it. And then one step above that is to actually personalize the dynamic content subject line. So you could still personalize it with the number of times they visited their name, something like that. Okay, so you could use any of that data, assuming that you have access to it and it’s in your automation tool. Relevance is still important though, right? Because when we tailor that subject line to the recipient’s needs and interest, it will make them more likely to open and engage.
04:30
So the closer that you get to something that is relevant to the person who is actually receiving it, each individual person, the higher your open rates are going to be. And again, as long as you continue with that logic of making sure that you follow through with the body content and the CTA and the call to action, then you should see higher engagement as well. And I’ll define engagement as a click through for the sake of this podcast. So when I say engage, I mean they engage and click through the email. What about the length of a subject line? And what about mobile? So the ideal length for subject lines is typically 40 to 60 characters. If you google this question, you’ll get somewhere between 40 and 90 are the results that you’re going to find.
05:18
But the benefit of using shorter ones is that they can show up on mobile full in full, right? So longer subject lines are going to be truncated, and sometimes that’s okay, but not always. Right. And now you can optimize subject lines for mobile devices beyond the length of it by using punchy words, avoiding jargon, and front loading all the important words. So make sure that the early words in the subject line are what really matter and the later words are, I guess, less important but still relevant to the formatting of the sentence. You can also use things like sentence case, I think is a good way to use subject lines. I always kind of get thrown off if I see capitalization of the first word for every single word in a subject line. Sometimes that kind of throws me off.
06:15
Sentence case, I think it’s personal preference more than anything else. But definitely what we want to avoid is all caps. Do not write subject lines in all caps, and do not use excessive punctuation. This is important because spam filters will pick up on these things. So spam filters will note that there are a number of exclamation points, that it’s capital letters and it will sometimes trigger your email to the spam box. We definitely do not want that because I’m assuming everybody listening to this does not send spam email. Using urgency and fomo like fear of missing out can also be really helpful. So urgency and fomo can be created through subject lines by using words like limited time, exclusive, offer, last chance phrases like don’t miss out or act now. They also can convey urgency.
07:06
And just keep in mind that some ethical considerations I think should come in here, like ensuring transparency and providing genuine value to the people that you’re sending the email to. So again, that comes back right up to segmentation, making sure that the people who you’re sending this email to, it’s actually going to be relevant to them to the best of your knowledge, and you’re trying to provide value. Sending an email just to send an email is not a good long term plan. What about a b testing? So we a b test emails all the time. My general rule is that if we have say like a couple thousand, a few thousand recipients to an email, it is well worth testing subject lines. So you can test the obviously subject lines to see which ones perform better.
07:55
But again, you might want to test as well, not just open rates, but also click through rates. And then if you’re sending somebody to a landing page. Conversion rates, how do those differ? Open rate, I think is pretty self explanatory. Click through rate. You’re actually clicking in the button in the email or a hyperlink in the email. What about a conversion rate? So the conversion would be if they land on a landing page with a form, they actually submit that form. So that’s going to be your conversion. So does that change at all from when you open rate? Does the open rate improve or drop with your AB test? Does the click through rate improve or drop with a and b? And does your conversion rate change at all with a and b?
08:35
If it’s close and it’s negligible, then you can kind of push it aside and say, okay, well, we can see that neither of them really have a major impact at the bottom of the funnel. The conversion side on the click through rate, we see that the one that is really focused on, if we use the same language that’s in the CTA, maybe you’ll see a higher click through rate, something like that. And all of this is pretty subliminal too. We, when we’re reading emails, are not picking up on the things that we as marketers are trying to focus on and make really clear. So when you use language from the CTA in your subject line, that is not obvious to anybody opening the email, I assure you. But what it can do is it can trigger them to see that action.
09:20
They read the action that drives them to open the email and they see that action again in a button and that will improve click through rate. It’s not completely black and white, but it definitely helps. You can also use insights from a b testing to iterate and optimize subject lines by analyzing trends and making some data driven decisions as well, which is really helpful. So in general, on a higher level, do you see that personalizing makes a difference over not? Probably the answer is going to be yes. Do you see that using numbers or percentages or something like that, does that make a difference over not? Depending on your industry, the answer is going to be yes.
10:03
So if you’re in a more b to b space and your decision makers and your email recipients and the segmentation that you’re using are maybe like higher level, then yeah, I think it’s going to make a difference to be using data driven subject lines and data focused subject lines with quantitative values rather than qualitative values. So something to test consider and then you can use that as you test and you learn you can use that for your future tests. So you say, okay, well, we now know that these are the words that seem to really make a difference, maybe these specific action words. We also know that using numbers makes a big difference. So we’re going to try to use a number in everything, things like that. Some emerging trends that I’ve seen is extensively personalizing subject lines incorporating emojis and symbols.
10:58
And I’ve noticed that’s been coming up a lot. And I also am seeing that it’s working. There was a number that I think mailchimp put out. I could be getting this wrong, but I think mailchimp put out and it was pretty solid. It was like a 30% lift in open rate for using, again, the right emoji, so relevant emojis. And I think that also comes sparingly. So using them sparingly, but definitely test it. Absolutely test it. Those different things, though, they can really help increase engagement. So some things to keep in mind, though, particularly with emojis, but some things to keep in mind are thinking about how these subject lines are going to display across different email clients and devices.
11:49
And then also, and I’m going to leave it here because I don’t know enough about it, but also just thinking about sensitivity to cultural demographic differences. If there’s anything that you should be keeping in mind about the places that you’re sending the emails to and those cultural preferences, all in all, it really matters. It really matters if you have never taken the time to test a subject line and you just write subject lines to write them. And I hear you. If you do that, it can be difficult and frustrating to write subject lines. I will say that if you are in that box and you find it difficult to write subject lines, testing is really a great option for you because if you work to put together a strategic approach on testing, you can craft a template to use.
12:42
So in this part of the template, here are all the possible action words that we could use in this part of the template. This is where we’re going to put what is relevant to the CTA of the email in this part of the template. This is where we’re going to conclude with some sort of you time of importance, specificity on importance, fear of missing out, something like that. And you can build that template and you can build options for those and that can help you to create subject lines in the future. So along with that, we talked about including some different eye catching elements like emojis, balancing clarity and intrigue, personalization, mobile optimization, and keeping your subject line short. Or if they have to be long to front load the subject line with everything that’s really important and creating that urgency.
13:25
And lastly a b testing. And at the end, it comes down to testing and experimenting. And if you do that, you will work to continually improve your subject lines. And I’m telling you, it really makes a difference. One 2% lift at the top of the funnel can make a big difference down below in the lower part of the funnel. So just some things to keep in mind as you’re going through the process. Please don’t forget to subscribe if you enjoy this. I really do appreciate it. And you can listen to us on Spotify or on Apple Music on YouTube as well. And we’re also on TikTok for some shorts. So my name is Ryan. This has been the demand gen pod and we will see you next week. Happy march. Close.