Truth #5: The
real reason people open your email messages
If your email doesn't get opened, your email
list is useless. Effective email marketing means
getting your email opened, rather than trashed,
in the first three seconds after a recipient
sees it. But what's the magic formula for getting
your email opened?
I found statistics covering this in the Email
Marketing Metrics Guide from Marketing Sherpa
(read my review of this must-have research at http://www.arialsoftware.com/metricsguide.htm).
These were compiled from a consumer email study
that asked tens of thousands of people what drove
them to open their emails. And you know what
single factor came out on top?
The
"from" address.
That's right: the name that appears in the "from" column
in the recipient inbox is the single most important
factor: it was cited by 60% of the study respondents.
That makes it more important that the subject
line and the email content preview.
But what FROM address should you really use?
What FROM address gets your email opened?
The answer was simple and straightforward. It
should be:
- Consistent. Always use the same FROM address.
- Recognizable. The recipient should recognize
who you are by reading the FROM address. This
translates into using your company name in
most cases. If you're Amazon.com, for example,
the FROM address should simply read, "Amazon.com"
Mistakes
to avoid
Avoid the mistake of using a personal email
address as the FROM address. You don't want it
to show, "Mary Johnson" and then have
MaryJohnson@amazon.com as the email address.
That won't get opened because nobody knows who
Mary Johnson really is. But they do know who
YOU are, assuming they subscribed or purchased
something from you to get on your email list
in the first place.
This is a branding effort, too, but its most
important benefit is to simply get your emails
opened.
Next
most important: subject lines
The next most important factor is the subject
line, and here's where men and women differ.
According to the same study cited above, 69%
of men open emails that contain the word "news" or
promise compelling information, vs. only 46%
of women who open the same emails.
But women respond better to discount offers:
64% opened emails that focused on a price discount,
whereas only 50% of men opened the same email.
Does this mean you should split your list into
male / female demographics? It's certainly worth
testing, but an easier way would be to find out
who you're selling to today (mostly men or mostly
women) and cater more of your email announcements
to the strategy proven to work for that group.
Find
out what really works
There's a lot more juicy information like this
in the Email Marketing Metrics Guide published
by Marketing Sherpa. I've read and reviewed the
entire manual at: http://www.arialsoftware.com/metricsguide.htm
NEXT: THE SUMMARY
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