Email Marketing Software for a Successful Greasy Spoon

It may surprise you to know, but a catchy email marketing software campaign subject line is not always the most effective technique to getting your email marketing campaign opened by your subscribers. The most effective email marketing campaign subject lines are straight forward and to the point, and directly pertinent to the information contained within your email. As a business owner or operator, learning the best practices to getting your subscribers to open their emails is crucial. The more people that open your emails, the more customers you will gain, and the more sales you will make based on the contents of your message.

It is important to know what your message is to your customers, and how you want to develop the relationship with them through email marketing software. Although this sounds like obvious advice, statistics indicate that many email marketing campaigns are not successful because the content is not in line with what the customer was expecting when he or she signed up. For instance, a subscriber might have signed on to receive updates on new products, but is now receiving promotional emails for items in stock.

The email subject line should reflect the kind of email subscribers have asked for. If they have signed up for a newsletter, then the most effective subject lines are those that include your company name and the topic of the newsletter. If the subscriber signed on to receive promotions, then the email subject line should indicate what the promotion is. Notice that these are very straight forward: nothing cute, nothing fancy. In an email environment plagued by spam, people are skeptical of the cutesy attempts at getting people to open their emails. People trust email subject lines that deliver the straight goods. Statistics show that email marketing software subject lines that directly explain the contents of the email receive an open-rate of anywhere between 60-85%, whereas the witty, and pun-filled subject lines tend to have a subscriber open-rate of 6-14%.

Here are some other things to keep in mind when constructing your email subject line. Keep your subject line under 55 characters. Longer subject lines lose your subscriber quickly and often don't fully appear when sent. Do not use too much capital lettering or symbols like exclamation points or dollar signs in your email marketing software subject line. All these techniques, commonly used to attract attention, also end up attracting spam filters. If you overuse them, your email will not go into your subscribers' inbox, but rather into their spam or junk mail box.

The email subject line is the subscribers' first touch-point with your email marketing software campaign. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that it is relevant to the subscriber. Too often companies that use email marketing place promotional information in the subject line for subscribers that have signed up for a newsletter. The subscriber is immediately turned away from the promotional offer, because he never signed up to receive promotions. Instead the subscriber begins to mistrust the brand or company sending the email marketing software campaign. Remember that simple and straight forward email subject lines are trustworthy and produce better results in terms of subscriber open-rates. The better the open rates, the better overall return on investment you will achieve. Your email subject line is just like anything else: you only get one chance to make a good impression!

Robert Burko is CEO of Elite Email, the complete email marketing software package used by small, medium, and enterprise level businesses around the world.