I recently designed and sent this email campaign for my client, DIAZ GROUP. The email itself is a fairly straight forward product bulletin, but it also contained a very important announcement about the company. I wanted to makes sure open rates were as high as possible, so I tested the email subject line.
Show me the money!
[bar_graph]
[bar title=”Subject A” percent=”67″ color=”Extra-Color-1″ id=”b1″]
[bar title=”Subject B” percent=”21″ color=”Extra-Color-2″ id=”b2″]
[/bar_graph]
[divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”10″]
I created two subject lines; “Have you heard the news?” and “HALCON added to our line package” and tested the effectiveness of both. As you can see by this graph, the winning subject line was “Have you heard the news?”. Based on this test and dozens of others, here’s what I’ve learned:
Ask a question. First, by asking a direct question we engaged the reader by interrupting their normal train of thought. Questions need answers, and the answer to this question was probably a resounding “no”. What news?! Tell me more!
Make it exciting! The second item the subject line accomplished was that it added a bit of intrigue. It encouraged the reader to open the email and catch up on some exciting news.
Keep it conversational. Lastly, the winning subject line was conversational. It connects with the reader on a very basic level as if my client were actually posing the question to a colleague at a networking event or over coffee.
The attached graph says it all. Guided by the results of our A/B split test, version A was delivered to the rest of the database with an overall open rate of 225% as compared to the other subject line. Not bad!