Are Your Subject Lines Getting Short Shrift?

If you’re like most marketers, you may not be paying enough attention to your subject lines.
According to an EROI survey, three-fourths of marketers try to make sure their subject lines are relevant to the content of the e-mail. Half of marketers try to keep their subject lines short. But only one quarter of marketers test their subject lines regularly.

What’s the big deal? After all, the subject line is such a small bit of copy in the greater scheme of things… But you might want to reconsider how much time you devote to this little headline.

The fact is, your subject line could make the difference between whether your customer reads your sales letter… or sends your e-mail straight to her trash folder.

And if your customer isn’t reading your sales copy, you’ve just lost a potential sale.

How can you make your subject lines appealing to your readers?

You can find plenty of ideas about how to make subject lines stronger. But the only way to REALLY KNOW what’s working is to test.

Split your e-mail list into two parts. (This works best if you have a list of 100,000 or more.) Send the exact same e-mail to your entire list - but send one subject line to half your list, and another subject line to the other half.

And measure your results. Find out how many of your subscribers are opening your e-mails. Look for patterns. Do short subject lines have a higher open rate than long subject lines? Do questions get people to open their e-mails more frequently? Does using someone’s name influence open rates? Then test your assumptions and increase your Home Seller Assist

reponses.

If you’re not testing your subject lines, you could be missing out on hundreds - even thousands - of potential sales.