E-mail marketing: the subject line puzzle

How much time do you spend each day hitting the delete button? And how many tenths of a second does it take you to decide to click?

I'm personally getting pretty fast -- hope I don't accidentally delete something I want. But sometimes the titles, or the sender names, are so silly that I stop and stare a second. For instance, I've been getting mail from someone named Ron Representive. How clever.

Meanwhile, I read a good tip this week, so have to share. The writer was discussing the difficulty of getting email opened, and he had a good idea. Put your main subject first, and some follow up words after a colon - like I just did with this title

It makes sense, especially if you're talking about 10 ways to do something or promoting a class or maybe sending an invitation to an industry event. For instance. Instead of writing
"10 ways to write a better business letter", you could say "Business letters: 10 ways to improve yours."

That method might help your open rate, and might alert quick fingered folks like me to stop and look just an instant longer.

The other method I've read, which I think is really good if you're writing to folks who know you, is to put your name or your company name in brackets at the beginning. Such as [Marte Cliff]
Not much help though, if you're writing to strangers.

Whatever we do, its definitely time to identify who we are and what we're offering - or at least find a way to differentiate our messages from the ton of pure junk that floods our in boxes.

I'm hoping that all those people who write the cute, tricky subject lines will become so discouraged by their results that they'll fade into the sunset. You know, the ones that say things like "I got your message" when it's from someone you've never heard of. But, I expect when they do, others will take their places.

If you have any great tips to share on this subject -- or any other -- please write!

Yours for success,
Marte

P.S. If you want some tips on writing a better business letter, join my marketing ezine. Just send a blank email.