e-cards & e-newsletters - What about the subject line?
Posted by Paul BradleyDecember 2nd, 2008
Many companies email their customer database with monthly or quarterly e-newsletters. Why not? It’s a good way of reaching your audience quickly and cheaply, and it keeps your brand in your customers’ minds.
In addition, at this time of year we see companies looking at other alternatives to traditional Christmas cards, with more and more investigating the the e-card route.
When sending an e-newsletter or e-card through to your customers’ inbox, the subject line of the email is of the utmost importance, for these 2 reasons -
1. Spam filters
These days spam filters are very sophisticated, and even if your email isn’t peddling a well known prescription drug, doesn’t mean your customers’ server will agree that your email is any different. To overcome this, be careful in the wording you choose. Avoid words like ‘free’ ‘credit’ and ‘call now’ and also overuse of punctionation such as exclamation marks and question marks. In short, be sensible with it, word it as though you are writing a personal email to someone.
2. Open Rate
It’s all too easy to press delete on an email before you’ve even opened it. Sifting through emails has now become like sifting through your post at home; complete with Domino’s menus, credit card offers and charity plastic bags to put your old clothes in.
You need to make sure your recipient opens your email, and the only way of securing this is with the subject line. Include your brand in the subject, if your customers know it. If you’ve acquired your email marketing list through your customer database, they should be aware of you.
Include some pull, a taster perhaps of what is enclosed.
Wrong - “December newsletter”
Right - “Acme Ltd News - Savings across all our rocketpacks during December”
Of course, when you’ve got through to your customer, and you have their attention, you need to make sure you’re delivering a knockout email to them!
Tags: e-card, e-newsletter, email marketing
