In a typical day, week, or month, how many newsletters do you get delivered to your inbox? If you’re anything like me, the number might easily go into the hundreds! But the question that really matters is, how many of them do you actually click on to read? I’d be willing to guess that figure is significantly lower. Do you have any idea why it is the case? Why do you ignore those emails that you haven’t seen or delete them before you’ve even looked at them to see what they contain? The topic line is a significant factor, as it can be seen. Imagine now that the same thing is going to happen to your newsletters. Do you want them to be disregarded and removed from the conversation? If you haven’t already, reading this article will assist you understand what motivates subscribers to open an email you send them. How the Subject Lines of Newsletters Have a Critical Role in Achieving High Open Rates We have worked with hundreds of clients over the years to provide the weekly, monthly, and periodic digital newsletters that our customers have requested. Before distributing the newsletter to the client’s list, we conduct the necessary research and write the featured piece that will appear in the newsletter for many of our customers. For our work with other clients, they provide us with pre-written versions of the materials they want distributed. However, these customers almost never give any regard to the subject line, which is quite crucial. It is difficult to conceive of a subject line having so much power; nevertheless, when 35% of email receivers would open an email based on the subject line alone, it is clear that the subject line is one of the most important components of a newsletter. You have the ability to commission the writing of the most wonderful essay that will very literally alter the lives of other people. However, if they never open the email, they will never read your work or have the opportunity to experience how it can change their lives. READ: Five Convincing Arguments Why Sending Email Newsletters to Customers Is Beneficial for Small Businesses There are five compelling reasons why it is beneficial for small businesses to send out email newsletters. Someone is figuratively raising their hand and indicating that they are interested in receiving additional information from you when they visit your website, input their name and email address to sign up for your newsletter, and then click the “sign up” button. If you do not maintain that contact with them, you are essentially doing them a disservice. You will be able to create a relationship with your followers based on the three pillars of “know, like, and trust,” which will result in a significant rise in your brand visibility and market reach if you send consistent email newsletters to your followers. Check out our website for further reading. There are 5 main reasons why your subscribers don’t read your newsletter. There are a lot of various ways to write a subject line that will get you the open rates that you are looking for (I have numerous books that are just on this subject alone!) To get you started, though, here are the top five reasons why people are ignoring your emails and what you should do in the subject line as soon as possible: 1) Irrelevant to the person reading it. Put yourself in the position of your reader and ask yourself: what would make them want to keep reading? Are you guiding them toward an answer that can be found in the article that you have written? Are you able to pique their interest to the point that they feel they are losing out on something important if they don’t continue reading? If the content that you are putting out is not the content that your readers want to receive from you, then you have effectively lost them in the inbox. Therefore, you need to ensure that you have a good understanding of who your target audience is and the reasons why they choose to sign up for your newsletter in the first place. 2) The length is excessive in terms of characters. If the subject line of an email is too long, there is a good probability that it will be abbreviated in the preview window and therefore not read by the recipient. Because of this, the likelihood of persuading the reader to open the email will be significantly reduced. If you want to follow best practices, your subject line should have no more than sixty characters, and this includes the use of emojis. 3) It is either too smart or too unclear. Subject lines that perform the best are those that are descriptive and make it very obvious what the reader will gain from reading the content in question. Attempting to be clever frequently results in being either too broad or too unclear, to the point where only you fully understand what it is about, while everyone else is confused. Never, ever presume that the reader will understand what you are trying to convey to them because this is a valuable rule of thumb. Always be clear and get to the point as quickly as possible. 4) The service is not individualized. According to Convince & Convert, the click-through rate for emails that include the recipient’s first name is higher than the click-through rate for emails that do not include the recipient’s first name. If you just do this one item, it might increase your open rate by as much as 50 percent. Make this a habit for many of the newsletters that you put out; however, I do not advocate that you do this with each and every one of them. 5) Utilizing words and characters that are known to generate spam. 16% of all emails end up in the garbage bin, most commonly because the subject line was poorly worded and contained terms that are known to trigger spam filters. Check that your next email does not contain terms that are commonly utilized by spammers such as over-sensationalization, over-promising, and over-use of the word “over.” Do this before sending out your next newsletter. When you are next writing your newsletter, give the subject line twice as much attention as you did writing the content itself, and then observe whether or not this leads to an increase in the number of people who read the email. Use this fantastic subject line evaluation tool with every send out: www.subjectline.com to check how it compares to industry norms and get feedback on how to improve it. Checking your statistics after sending each newsletter to see what proportion of recipients opened it is another useful practice to get into. Are those figures getting better or becoming worse with each email that’s sent out? Also, if your newsletter provider permits it, try conducting a split test to see which subject line format resonates best with your audience by comparing the results of the two. If you find it difficult to write appropriate subject lines, much alone newsletters and blog pieces, you should seriously consider working with marketing professionals who are able to complete all of that laborious job on your behalf. Leave a comment below to share the types of subject line formats that frequently get you to open the email and read the rest of the message, as well as the formats that virtually invariably get you to trash the message. What distinguishing characteristics do you find between the two? I wish you much luck in your business.
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