Marketers are people too. That may be why, when they think of e-mail, their thoughts so often center on the barriers to getting delivered. They fixate on CAN-SPAM compliance, and opt-in opportunities, and the filters that Internet service providers and e-mail services like Hotmail set up to shield their users from illicit (or just unwanted) communications.
E-mailers have to think about those hurdles, of course. But they should be equally focused on another type of filter: the “junk mail” folder in the recipient’s mind. Getting delivered is only the first step in the e-mail marketing process. Getting opened is where the selling begins, and where your message has a chance to take hold and inspire action. If your e-mail campaign doesn’t get opened, then merely making it past the filters is small consolation—and small help to your bottom line.
Thanks not just to the annoyance of spam but the dual threats of computer viruses and identity theft, e-mail has evolved into an elaborate negotiation of trust. If I recognize you as someone I have done business with in the past, or if I can at least tell you’ve been referred by a merchant I trust, then I’m more likely to open your message. This is why e-mail is most often used to bolster existing customer relationships: to retain them, to reactivate them if they’ve fallen off, or to build on them with cross-promotion and downstream sales or service.
Research says that you have three seconds to convince a recipient to open your e-mail. And experience says you have three tools to do that: the name of the sender, the domain the message came from, and the subject line. That’s it. Don’t count on the preview pane to tease your reader with peppy graphics or a grabber headline. That banging noise you’ve been hearing for years is the sound of users slamming those preview windows shut, out of the real fear of activating a computer virus by simply highlighting a message in their mailbox.
Who’s Calling, Please?
No, for that first glance, all you’ve got to work with are the name, the domain, and the subject line. And of these, the “from” line—the “name@domain”—is the first crucial hurdle. Eye-movement studies have shown that users check the “from” column in their mailboxes before they check the subject line. They’re looking first for friends, relatives and co-workers; after that– when and if they have time—they’re checking for recognized senders. The most recent DoubleClick Consumer E-mail Study, published in October 2004, found that 93% of respondents classified as spam any e-mail “from unknown senders.”
So put your brand name or specific service division out there in the “from” line, front and center, to encourage opening. Which you choose—brand or division—will depend on how narrowly you are targeting your audience. “Microsoft can certainly send out an e-mail using only its name in the ‘from’ line,” says Regina Brady, principal of Norwalk, CT-based Reggie Brady marketing Solutions. “But they may get better results by using ‘Microsoft Office Suite’, if that’s the user targeted.”
The “from” line should always be corporate—never personalized with a real name. “That’s how spam works, by pretending to be from a real person,” Brady says. “Always use the brand, or company division, or name of the product or service.”
The same goes for the domain name, which should always look official. If your business is too small to own its own domain, use an e-mail service provider that will permit you to create one for your campaigns, Brady says. Never, no matter how small you are, send marketing e-mail from your everyday broadband account. Apart from getting yourself tagged as a spammer by your ISP, you’ll lose the benefit of being able to apply metrics to your campaign to find out how well your message was received, opened and acted upon.
What’s My Line?
If your message survives the “who are you?” test, it faces the subject line hurdle. It’s a big job done in a small space: five to eight words, or 30 to 40 characters total, including spaces. Any more than that, and the full subject won’t fit in your recipient’s e-mail window, which will lead some to delete it.
Convey a clear benefit with your e-mail: time or money saved, or some other way the reader’s life will be better. Specifics work, and generic lines get ignored. “Sale at The Pet Stop” won’t compel the same number of opens as “50% off dog and cat beds” or “Meet the ‘Crocodile Hunter’ next Thursday.”
And make sure you think yourself into the mind of your sales prospect—the only point of view that matters. Many e-mail marketers play up what they think is the most important feature of a product or service; but is that what’s going to grab prospects’ attention? Open-platform architecture isn’t the top attribute for most buyers of business software; the fact that they can add functions for 50% of the cost of a custom system might be.
Stay away from generic-sounding subject lines such as “Here’s that information you requested” or “A special offer for you.” Even with your name in the “from” line, these sound suspiciously spam-like.
Word alert: “Free” is no longer taboo in subject lines, at least to spam filters. Most of these now work on a point system that looks at various elements in the total message. So while they might deduct a point for using “free” in the header, that shouldn’t block your message unless you use it four or five more times in the body. Of course, you may want to make sure recipients won’t take it on themselves to decide the “free” subject line indicates spam.
Be truthful in your subject lines. Cleverness is not appreciated if it suggests deception or an offer you don’t intend to fulfill. The DoubleClick 2004 consumer e-mail survey found that 95% of respondents consider as spam any message that “attempts to trick me into opening it.”
Other Opening Gambits
Here are some other tips on making sure your e-mail gets to its reader, both the first time and with all the contacts thereafter:
* Timing matters in getting your message read. The rules vary by business and target audience, but in general, try to e-mail between Tuesday and Thursday, and between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. And keep your eye on the calendar to avoid launching an e-mail campaign around social or religious holidays, school holidays or long weekends.
* Frequency of e-mail can determine how many opens your e-mail scores. The right frequency will vary depending on your audience, your market, the product or service you’re selling, and the time of year. Customers who’ve bought big-ticket items like cars and life insurance have already entered into a long-term connection with you and may only be annoyed by e-mail that arrives too frequently. But they might want to know about monthly specials at their local auto repair shop or book store, or to hear weekly from their brokerage firm. Not e-mailing enough has its dangers, too. A merchant who e-mails quarterly may find that many addresses are no longer active—and others may have forgotten they gave permission to be e-mailed. Brady recommends e-mailing monthly at a minimum, and probably no more than two or three times a month outside of holiday times.
* While many users—probably most—don’t use the preview pane in their e-mail reader, that’s no reason to ignore the ones who do. For them, a glimpse of the first few sentences of the e-mail can be used to compel opening. Brady says e-mails from Drugstore.com serve as a mini-portal by including at their top the navigation bar to the Web site. “Even if I’m not interested in the e-mail’s offer, I may remember that I need toothpaste and I can click right through to the proper landing page for that item,” she says.
* Consider offering a reduced e-mail frequency rather than having customers unsubscribe from your list. Letting customers who balk at your bi-weekly e-mails opt for a monthly message gives them a sense of control over the relationship and may in fact make it stronger. Brady points to Lands’ End as a good example; the “Preferences” link at the bottom of their regular e-mail lets a customer change their e-mail frequency, as well as their e-mail address and the format in which they receive messages. “It’s a great idea to give consumers the power to control how they dialogue with you,” she says.
* Ask for data on your customers’ interests wherever you can: in stores, on your Web site, and in periodic e-mail surveys. The aim here is always to find out what type of content is relevant to them, segment them on the basis of those interests and target them more specifically in future e-mails. It may mean smaller, more tightly focused campaigns than the traditional e-mail blast, but it will also produce better open rates per mailing and better return on investment.
* Once you’ve gotten them to open that first e-mail, ask for their trust by including a line in the e-mail suggesting that they put your “From” address in their address book or approved sender list. Most ISPs now offer these, and they can make sure you don’t get caught in the spam filter. But for this to work, your “from” line must remain consistent from one message to the next.
* One of e-mail’s biggest advantages is its easy testability. Take advantage of that and do some sample mailings before a big launch, trying different offers, different text and—simplest of all—different subject lines. “I’ve seen examples where a small change in the subject line meant a 25% difference in the open rate,” Brady says. “It’s simple to do, but it makes for a much better return on investment.”
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