You may want to STOP customizing your subject lines!

[ezine ads]

Reason # 1 - Last two MailerMailer's reports revealed that ...

"Emails with personalization in the subject lines had the worst performance, generating the least amount of click rates. Personalizing subject lines is a tactic used by some to get recipients to open unsolicited email. Thus, the decrease in opens due to personalized subject lines is likely caused by people becoming conditioned to delete such messages because they are often unsolicited."

[If you didn't read the reports yet, get them free here: Email Marketing Metrics Report]

Reason # 2 - Yahoo suggested that senders should not customize the subject line by merging in personal information.

[Discussion between StreamSend's Deliverability Manager and Yahoo's Anti-Spam Czar (Mark Risher). Source: StreamSend Email Marketing Blog: Straight From Yahoo]

* * *

Concusion: You decide what's best for you

[Alexa Smith]

Interesting, thanks, Adrian.

(I do assume, myself, that an email with my name in the subject-line is going to be a sales/promotional one and that perhaps does lower my interest in it).

[Scott Ames]

That's Bad News...

[Mark Riddle]

For me the subject line that gets the highest open rate is

"Obama asked me to send YOUR information to the Whitehouse"


Mark Riddle

[JayXtreme]

Thanks for posting the links...

But it really doesn't tell the complete story here.

As you said, deciding what's best for you is of highest importance. I know from my own, personal testing that response rates to various subject lines are niche specific.

Personalised subject lines have consistently outperformed alternatives for me in some niches. Needless to say (?), the more "cynical" niches are probably the ones being discussed here.

The IM niche, work at home etc etc..

I almost always personalise the subject line of my mailings to a list of equestrian buyers, yet the freebie list in the exact same niche is a total no-go with personalised mail.

Strange?

No.

Just the results of rigorous testing that tells me that only my lists will decide what works for them when I collect their names.

Peace

Jay

Originally Posted by Mark Riddle

For me the subject line that gets the highest open rate is

"Obama asked me to send YOUR information to the Whitehouse"


Mark Riddle

Well I was asked to send your information last night Mark... You mean I was'nt supposed to do it

James

[ezine ads]

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

That's Bad News...

Well, I think that it's good news for many people! (for marketers who are not so famous/well-known so that people to read their emails as a simple consequence of the emails coming from them. For the regular (no "big" name, not branded) marketer the subject lines matter a lot)

Here's why this may be good news for them ... The marketers who read the news may be forced to get better results =>=>

The longer the first name, the shorter the part of the subject line that is readable without opening the email.

or vice-versa ...

The shortest the first name (=> 0), the longer the readable part of the subject line.

Now, take this into consideration: what's the most important part of a subject line? The first name or the rest of the subject line? Sometimes you cannot have both fully readable and you have to choose. Now marketers may be forced to choose the right one

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

Just the results of rigorous testing that tells me that only my lists will decide what works for them when I collect their names.

That is the biggest "Secret" that so many people new to or struggling in IM fail to understand.

[ezine ads]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

Thanks for posting the links...

But it really doesn't tell the complete story here.

The main purpose of the original post wasn't to tell a story but to tell the news

I assumed that any marketer knows that she/he has to apply some new info to her/his own case. [For example, I know ezine publishers who don't accept Yahoo email addresses since years]