B2B Email Subject Lines Should Be Short or Long, Use Personalization in the Content

If you’re sending out B2B emails, there are a lot of different factors you need to take into consideration — length, discount terms, content terms, business terms and personalization among them.

Oh, and we’re just talking about the subject line.

A new report from Adestra, an email marketing company, shares the findings of an analysis of nearly 1.2 billion emails sent in the last 12 months. “There are numerous keys to success in B2B email marketing campaigns,” the report begins. “Focusing on lead nurturing, conversion optimisation and customer journey is paramount but the building blocks can’t be missed. For all of the gains made in process and automation, poorly selected subject lines will prevent you from even getting a foot in the door.”

Here are some of the findings from Adestra’s report:

Character length
According to the analysis, subject lines with 90 or more characters yielded the highest relative open and click rates. Adestra explains that this is because more benefits can be conveyed by using more characters.

Email subject lines with 30 or fewer characters also yielded good response rates. Subject lines in the middle of the two extremes, or 30-60 characters, is a “dead zone.”

In light of these findings, B2B marketers should use more characters to communicate more benefits to recipients. Symbols can also be used to visually describe the email’s content value. If an email is promoting an offer or requires an action, fewer characters should be used, according to Adestra.

Word count
Adestra notes that word count is a proxy for character count, and vice versa. “However in a B2B context, where industry-specific jargon tend to be long words, it’s important to consider this metric,” the company notes in the report.

B2B email subject lines with 1-2 words saw the best response rates. Subject lines with more than 14 words also saw decent response rates, though far inferior to the response observed for short subject lines. Adestra notes that a small number of words perform well “but only when the words are chosen wisely!”

Discounts and promotional words
When it comes to promotional words in B2B email subject lines, “sale” was by far the best-performing word in terms of open and click rates. “Voucher” also fared decently. “This could be due to the low level of buying urgency these types of promotions require,” according to Adestra. “They don’t require immediate action which means that B2B recipients may be more inclined to open the email and see what the offer is, even if they don’t click through to take advantage.”

Other words like “half price,” “early bird” and “2 for 1” didn’t garner strong response rates. One factor at play is whether the recipient actually has buying power. If they don’t, they probably won’t open the email to see if the product is worth their attention. Also, Adestra notes that some words, like “half price,” require some investigation. For instance, for “half price,” half price of what original price? If a recipient asks questions about the subject line and don’t have an answer, they’re unlikely to open the email, let alone click through to the product page to learn more.

Content
“Issue” is a great word to use in email subject lines to alert recipients that the content is relevant. “Video” also performs well, according to Adestra, especially when combined with “interview” or other strong terms.

Personalization
Personalized subject lines are a quick way to make recipients feel engaged. Adestra found that open rates are boosted nearly 25 percent by personalized subject lines. However, engagement falls off because in most cases, the content of the email being opened isn’t personalized.

“The key here is to construct a congruous user experience,” Adestra notes. “If your subject line is personalised, ensure that the rest of the user journey is as well. The content, the landing page, the whole lot.”

Symbols
According to separate findings from The Retail Email Blog, the biggest subject line trend of the year has been the inclusion of special characters like hearts, stars and arrows. However, less than 1 percent of retail emails sent so far this year have included a special character in their subject line.

“Although some dismiss this as just a gimmick, it has moved the needle on email performance and is worthy of testing,” writes Chad White, research director at Responsys.

By Jason Hahn