EMail Marketing: Writing Great Subject Lines
When you think of selling your product or service, you might immediately think about your potential customer coming in to your place of business or contacting you by phone. These two strategies are both effective ways to do business, but they rely on the person finding and contacting you. There is another way to build a relationship with a potential customer that can also be effective and create a loyal returning customer, sometimes without ever having a face-to-face meeting. This effective strategy is the email marketing campaign, and when done correctly will create an eager, interested base of potential customers that can give your business a big sales boost.
To create an effective email campaign, you first need a way to collect the email addresses of current or potential customers. This can be done through your website, in your store or business, or at special events that you or your staff attends. Another way to effectively capture email addresses is to offer an email newsletter. The newsletter is an effective way to keep in touch with current customers and entice potential customers to become part of your email list. Once you have a list of email addresses, you can then create a series of emails that will capture the interest of your email list and effectively lead them to purchase what you are offering. This is especially beneficial for a product or service that requires a few exposures to your message before the customer decides to purchase.
When you have written your series of emails, you may think it’s time to start sending them out. But before you do that, take a moment to think about one of the most important aspects of an email marketing campaign: getting your prospect to open the email. This can be done by crafting a great email subject line. This is a potential customer’s first impression of your email and will be the deciding factor between the prospect opening your email or sending it to the trash folder.
Here are some tips for writing a subject line that introduces a “must open” email for your potential customers:
– Keep it short and simple. Nobody wants to read an email with a subject line that’s too long. Plus, most email programs (like Outlook) will shorten the subject line to under 50 characters anyway, so all your great writing will be lost, and your prospective customer might simply delete it. To ensure this doesn’t happen, create a short, compelling and creative subject line.
– Ask a question that your customer can’t ignore. A relevant question may leave your prospect with the itch to get the answer within your email. Do you want to double your website traffic?
– Present the benefit in your subject line and your prospect will want to open the email to learn how to immediately apply it to his or her own life. Turn this one tough business chore into a simple task.
– Put a compelling offer up front. If you are sending an email to announce a special promotion, sale or event, put it right at the start of your subject line. Include a time frame to help prospective customers act on the deal. 10% off all software before the close of business today!
– Use surprise tactics sparingly. It’s all right to send an email every so often with a “teaser” subject line, like “Have you ever found yourself in this situation?” Your customer might open it to find out what happened, but if you send out too many emails with this type of subject line, your customer may stop reading your emails.
Email subject lines are important because an effective subject line is what increases your email open rates. Keep your subject lines interesting, simple and to the point. You will capture your potential customer’s interest, ensuring they can’t help but open your email and look forward to the next one.
If your business needs ideas and strategies for effective emails, call Fall RIver Website Design at 508-415-8648 for a free consultation and evaluation of your email marketing strategy.
Did you know that Fall RIver Website Design can create custom templates for you to use with your own email marketing efforts? Alternatively, we can completely manage every facet of your email marketing and newsletter mailings – from design, to content creation, to mailing, to reporting statistics after the mailing. Give us a call and check out your options. Take the first step to powerful and professional mailings.