The  question "How do I write effective subject lines?" with all its variants is the No1 FAQ in email marketing, despite the fact that subject lines are probably the most frequently A/B tested variables in email marketing. Most email marketers A/B split test subject lines on a regular basis so why hasn't anyone come up with the answer yet?

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I think it's because most email marketing departments do not have enough resource to test more than 2 or 3 subject lines at a time. At that rate it could take several years to gather enough results to develop a truly effective methodology for subject line writing. Which leaves no other option but to keep A/B split testing.

But relying on relying on A/B split testing to tell you which of the 2, 3 or more subject lines you come up with is like expecting someone to give you a fish every day for the rest of your life. we think it's time to learn to fish; so we're launching a unique new research project.

Our aim is to conduct the first ever subject line study to evaluate the impact on ROI of language - grammar, syntax and word choice. In association with digital copywriting agency Sticky Content, we're analysing the results of hundreds of subject line split-tests conducted by us and participating clients over the last 18 months to find answers to such questions as:

• Which work better in subject lines - questions or instructions?
• What are the most effective words to use in subject lines - and what are the words to avoid?
• Does mentioning your brand name in a subject line really make a difference?
• Does personalisation in the subject lines improve performance?

Send us your subject lines - get a FREE advance report

Have you run A/B subject line tests in the last 18 months? If so, we would like to invite you to pool your test data with ours to create the largest collaborative subject line study ever run (and get a free copy advance copy).

Send us your subject line test results by Friday 2nd July and get a free advance copy of our whitepaper.

Find out more >>

 

Popular opinion states that an unopened email means your subscriber is disengaged and uninterested in making a purchase - we disagree. Unopened email communications have a tangible impact on brand awareness and can lead to purchase activity across all channels.

How? That's the subject of an article in published the latest edition of Email-Worx our weekly newsletter, on the phenomenon known as the Nudge Effect.  At Alchemy Worx we have spent the last 12 months or so looking at what we as email marketers can learn from behavioural economic theory in general and more specifically how behavioural architectural techniques – the Nudge Effect can be utilized to drive sales both on and offline.  

What is the Nudge Effect?

Essentially it's a way of influencing people's behaviour without telling them specifically what to do. You may be frustrated with unopened emails and low click-through rates, but be reassured that even if your subscribers don't open your email, its presence in their inbox leads to a tangible impact on brand awareness and sales via online and other channels.

The complete article which includes a short video clip is definitely worth a read and covers the following:

• Why the Nudge Effect works for email marketers
• How to make an unopened email sell
• How to optimize your emails for the Nudge effect
• How to tell if your unopened emails are impacting sales or conversions in other channels

Find out how to create emails that sell - whether they are opened or not.

Additional research

For an amusing and thought provoking insight into how the Nudge Effect works in daily life, watch this video from the entertainer and master of suggestion, Derren Brown.

You can also learn more about the Nudge Effect from the book that explored it in detail - Nudge: Improving Decisions About, Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein. Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Image only emails – Smart or Stupid?

Most email clients block email images from unknown senders by default. So best practice advice for the use of images on email (particularly large ones that appear in the preview pane) is to avoid using them if at all possible.

If you do have to use images the general recommendation is that you use them sparingly, making sure you use carefully thought Alt Tags AND text descriptors for the images. Other design techniques used to compensate for the image being blocked include, putting text behind them and using collapsible boxes.

So why so many companies persist in sending image only emails with no ALT Tags?

The short answer is that for some brands and markets - Fashion for example, images are integral to the sell, so they have to be used. However it is much less easy to understand why such great brands, with significant email budgets and very smart people working on their campaigns completely ignore best practice advice when it comes to ALT Tags etc. Surely their results must be adversely affected!

It would appear not. Analysis conducted by my company into the impact of images on client campaigns reveals a very interesting phenomenon.

Emails such as Email-Worx our own newsletter that is optimised for image blocking generate clicks from people who did not “open” the email. We typically find that around 3% of the clicks do not have a corresponding open (false negatives).

By comparison emails that use lots of or consist entirely of images generate fewer clicks without opens. In fact the harder it is to decipher the content of an email with images blocked the lower the incidence of false negatives!
 
It would appear that by withholding any information about what is in the email until images are downloaded, brands are able to get more of their subscribers to download their images. A very important tactic for brands that rely on creative to sell! Clearly this is only likely to work if the email is about a product their subscribers desire or are highly engaged with the senders brand.

So does this mean that you can ignore best practice and start to use images with impunity?

There's no right or wrong answer to that question, in our experience an approach that is highly effective in one market may not work for another. However we believe that marketers have 3 options and in the most recent issue of the Alchemy Worx newsletter we provide examples of how brands use images and discuss how images can be used in greater detail.

Here is a quick summary of the article.

Fully optimised for image blocking

Email designed in such a way that the content of the email is easily decipherable and downloading the images makes very little difference.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are not reliant on visuals
• Emails where content is the value proposition
• Transactional or update emails
• Newsletters
• B2B

Optimising for creative driven or image only emails

Emails designed to have little or no value until images are downloaded.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are highly visual
• Brand building
• B2C
• Building Desire
• Price indifference

Optimising for both

Emails designed “sell” with images blocked, but look more appealing with images downloaded.

More suited to:
• Products and services that are quite visual
• Retailers with many product lines to promote
• Groceries
• Price sensitive products and discounting

There you have it! If you are more likely to sell to a person who has seen your product or creative than a person who hasn't you may be able to maximise the number of people who download your creative and generate more sales by completely ignoring best practice.

I have just read yet another prediction of the death of email. Mostly I just ignore them, but today’s eMarketer Daily with the subject line: Social Nets and Blogs More Popular Than E-Mails is so shocking in its (mis)use of research and gratuitous brownnosing of social networking; that I felt forced to respond immediately.

The article begins as follows: “In the US and several other countries, more people use social networks and blogs than use e-mail. Does that mean the days of e-mail as an effective marketing tool are numbered?”

WHAT? More people use social networks and blogs than use e-mail!!!

My BS meter sprang into life immediately - for starters it is impossible to sign up for any blog or social network without an email address. Then you have to factor in the fact that all social networks and blogs etc. use email to reach the people (most people in the world) who DON’T spend every minute of every day reading blogs or their Facebook page.

So how can there be more users of Social media than email?
  
I decided to take a closer look. The article is based on a piece of research by Nielson entitled Global Faces and Networked Places and shows a chart as evidence of this staggering claim.

I found that the research:

-         does NOT claim that more people USE Member communities than email
-         does not define active reach
-         does not define email
-         does not equate active reach with unique users
-         shows that email use is growing faster than search

Even if “active reach” was a measure of the number of unique users does anyone truly believe software manufacturers sites are more popular than all social networking sites and blogs put together?

Apart from that, what I find most irritating is how lazy commentators become when they see something that panders to their emotional beliefs; especially when it comes to the flavour of the month!

To quote Warren Buffet “it's wonderful to promote new industries because they are very promotable. It’s hard to promote investment in a mundane product. It's much easier to promote an esoteric product, even particularly one [that doesn’t make money], because there is no quantitative guideline.”

Dela Quist
CEO Alchemy Worx
The Email Marketing Agency