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Email Marketing Strategies - The Subject Line Message
When you open your email In Box in the morning and 'weed out' the SPAM, how do you do it? By reading the subject line. Unless an email is blocked by a SPAM blocking application, the user reads the subject line and decides whether they should open the email or delete it.
If you can provide valuable information in the subject line, rather than a 'pitch' you stand a much better chance of getting them to open it. Here's an example of what I mean.
WatchThisStock.com
We did a campaign a couple years back for a domain: WatchThisStock.com . The objective was to promote stock tickers on the site for paying clients. The challenge was to get investors to log onto the site to see the tickers we were promoting and buy them, without our advising them to do so. We did this by providing the best stock picks our 'stock pros' could find along with our clients' tickers and suggesting that our visitors 'watch' them.
WatchThisStock.com provided potential investors with tickers to 'watch' that our stock pros expected to go up (or in some cases down, suggesting a 'short'). Investors would log onto WatchThisStock.com to find out what tickers they might want to buy, though the site never suggested that anyone ever buy any stock.
The challenge was to get investors to consistently visit the site to see what tickers we had picked and what our 'target' for each stock was. I need to define 'target' in terms of stock picks for you to understand this example. The 'target' is the price which you expect the price of the stock to climb or fall to. One might say, the current price per share for BRXY (just an example, not actual fact) is $3.24 and our 'target' is $4.27. They would be saying that they expect BRXY's price per share to climb from $3.24 to $4.27. If you were to buy stock on this advice you would sell when the stock reaches $4.27 (or falls instead).
We began purchasing and cultivating email addresses of investors who had 'opted-in' to recieve email about stocks. We sent a weekly newsletter from WatchThisStock.com to all investors in the list. Now, just because they had opted in, doesn't mean they opened the email. Most of them recieved hundreds of stock related emails because they had opted in to recieve them.
We would send out an email twice a week. The first email's subject line would read something like (again just an example):
WatchThisStock.com - BRXY currently: $3.24 -> Our target: $4.27
The second email of the week would read something like:
WatchThisStock.com - As we predicted: BRXY currently over $4.27
Usually, the ticker we predicted at the beginning of the week wasn't the same as the ticker we claimed in the second email. It was one from a previous week. That didn't matter much.
This subject line strategy did a number of things. First off, the name WatchThisStock.com tells a whole story all by itself. Second we 'proved' our ability to pick stocks on a weekly basis and let our readers know where they could find more picks. Third, it was amusing for the reader because each week, they were mildly interested in knowing whether or not our stock hit its target. That kept them from being quite so quick to hit the delete button. Of course, the subject also gave them a potential pick, without 'pitching' it. It also got them to actually buy stock. After about a month of getting these emails, an investor woud start taking us more seriously.
Think about this: Have you heard of a self fulfilled prophecy? If I can convince a lot of people that a stock is going to go up and they all buy it, what's going to happen? The stock is GOING TO GO UP!! And we did it all in an EMAIL SUBJECT LINE!
Besides reading plenty of our 'pitch' just in the subject line, sooner or later, the investor was bound to open the email. If they did open it, we didn't disappoint them. We provided more detailed information on the pick in our subject line, and then presented an enticing ad for WatchThisStock.com to get them to visit the site.
This is just one example of the power that can be gleaned from nothing more than an email subject line. The only thing you need to get the recipient to read it is get through their SPAM blocking software.
Using a strategy like this takes some imagination and a lot of thought. I can't give you a 1, 2, 3 on how to make it succeed but here are a few guidelines.
1. Identify a very specific email recipient target, for example 'Boston Red Sox Fans'. Once you've identified the target find ways to purchase, rent or cultivate opt-in email addresses of people within that target.
2. Identify a concise, on going piece of information that you can continue to supply within an email subject line. For example, game scores or statistics of some interest to your recipient target. Newspaper style headlines that are close to the recipient's interests like 'Red Sox Stop the Pirates AGAIN!' could work. It's better if you can make that information relate to or validate your service.
3. Find one word that can both identify your service and provide information as to where you can be found. A well thought out domain name can work wonders for this job. For example: RedSoxScores.com
4. Send your emails in a timely manner. If you send an email telling your recipient a game score a week after the game it's not going to be worth much because your recipient probably already knows the score. He's interested in last night's score.
5. Don't disappoint your readers. Give them what they hope to find when they open your email or log onto your Website. If you want to offer something free of charge then make sure your giveaway has genuine value to the recipient. DO NOT lie to your prospects. Respect them and always deliver as promised.
Author: Web Development Contractor - Marl K. Atkins
SoftLink Sytems, Inc.
About the Author
My company, SoftLink Systems, Inc. provides Web Development Contractor services. I have developed Web and database applications since 1995. I have also been Microsoft Certified since 1995.