Size Matters When it Comes to Email Subject Lines

According to new research from a British online marketing firm, email subject lines that work best are either less than 30 characters, or longer than 90 characters. You want to avoid the  “dead zone” between 30 and 90 characters.

The study conducted by Adestra, which analyzed over 1 billion B2B emails sent within the last 12 months, found that marketers using 90 characters and up produced the highest response rates because more benefits could be communicated. In contrast, snappier subject lines that used 30 characters or less performed well in the case for transactional or direct-action emails.

Word count is a proxy for character count, and vice versa. But, in B2B, where industry-specific jargon tends to be long words, it’s important to consider this metric.


Researchers found that word count results in the study produced similar results to the character lengths in that each end of the count scale performed the highest. However the comparative results show that much shorter subject lines (14 or fewer words) produced considerably higher engagement than longer subject lines.

While conventional wisdom says using dollar signs in your subject lines is risky, researchers say spam filters use “Baysian” filters to determine spam ratings, and in the B2B world, users engage strongly with currency symbols. Thus spam filters no longer penalize for dollar signs. That being said, the report found that engagement is high only when relevant and valuable financial email content is communicated in the subject line.

No kidding!

Here’s a summary of the report:

• Discount terms: These generally performed below average. “Sale” was found to above-average, though, in opens (14.4%), clicks (76.5%), and click-to-opens (54.3%). Others such as “% off,” “discount,” “free,” “half price,” “save,” “voucher,” “early bird,” and “2 for 1″ all came in below-average in all 3 metrics.
  
  
• News terms: These had better success than discount terms. “News” (16.2%), “update” (4.9%), “breaking” (33.5%), “alert” (25.9%), and “bulletin” (12.5%) all saw better-than-average click-to-open rates, with “newsletter” being the only term to perform below-average in each metric.
  
  
• Content terms: “Issue” (8.5%) and “top stories” (5.9%) were the only to perform above-average in click-to-opens, although the latter saw slightly below average open and click rates. “Forecast,” “report,” “whitepaper,” and “download” all saw below-average performance in each of the 3 metrics. “Research,” “interview,” and “video” scored above average for opens, but below average for clicks and click-to-opens.
  
  
• Benefit terms: “Latest” was the only to see above average clicks (8.8%) and click-to-opens (9%), while “special,” “exclusive,” and “innovate,” while performing average in opens, fared far more poorly in clicks and click-to-opens.
  
  
• Event terms: Each of these terms performed below average in opens, clicks, and click-to-opens. The terms examined were: “exhibition,” “conference,” “webinar,” “seminar,” “training,” “expo,” “event,” “register,” and “registration.” The worst offender for click-to-opens was “webinar” at -63.5%.
  
  
• Multichannel terms: Facebook (21.6%) and Pinterest (16.4%) were the only terms to score above average in clicks and click-to-opens, though both showed below-average performance in opens. However, “app” and “iPad” were above average in opens, and below average in clicks and click-to-opens. Both “Twitter” and “LinkedIn” were below average in all 3 metrics.

Social Networks
Generally speaking, referencing social networks won’t get you great response. Experts say this could be due to the huge volume of emails pertaining to them, or it could be an indication that in the B2B world people aren’t using social networks as much as pundits had predicted.

Personalized Subject Lines
With personalized subject lines, recipients feel instant engagement, but engagement falls off when people open the email, since in most cases the content of the emails is not personalized! The key here is to construct a congruous user experience, says the report.
As with everything else in B2B marketing, there’s no one-size-fits-all option. You just have to keep testing and tweaking as Adestra researchers agree.

Macro Economic View

Despite yesterday’s disappointing numbers on manufacturing activity, auto industry analysts reported yesterday that new vehicle sales rose 15 percent in November and a measure of planned business spending rose to its highest level in five months in October, the Commerce Department said last week. Meanwhile, single family home prices rose for an eighth straight month in September, according to the Standard & Poors/Case Shiller composite index.

Our Take: We think the overall trend is positive as the manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management is based on sentiment while the aforementioned data are from actual results. We’re also encouraged that the financial markets have held their ground despite no clear indication that the fiscal cliff will be avoided before January 1, 2013.

Conclusion

Just as there’s no one-size-fits all solution for email marketing, there’s not going to be a one-size-fits all marketing strategy for 2013. Things will be in constant flux regardless of what the economy and DC policy makers throw at us. You need to keep adjusting, tweaking and constantly measuring your game plan. You also can’t keep your head buried in spreadsheets and computer screens. In this data driven, ROI and KPI era, the need for anecdotal feedback is more important than ever. Go ahead and crunch the numbers. But, don’t forget to pick up the phone and call your clients and customers. Better yet, go spend some time with them, preferably at their offices or facilities. Get a feel for their culture, pain points and morale.

That’ll tell you more about their spending plans than any forecast or new metric.

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TAGS: Institute for Supply Management, Adesrta, email subject lines, size matters, Standard & Poors/Case Shiller, auto sales, housing market

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Not Federal Spending, Will Get Us Out of First Gear
Startups are what create net new jobs

Friday’s jobs report – most likely the last one we’ll see before the November elections – showed employers added only 114,000 jobs last month. Not a great result in an economy of our size, but better than many economists expected. Somehow the mediocre gain dropped the official unemployment rate to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent. We’re not going to waste your valuable time questioning the veracity of the numbers, but politicians who try to take advantage of this perceived job surge in their campaigns should be honest about the rest of the report—the share of jobless workers who’ve been out of work for at least six months is still extremely high at about 4.8 million. That’s about 4 in 10 total unemployed workers. Very depressing when we’re supposedly three years into the “recovery.” 

Long term joblessness, which tends to be a more accurate picture of what’s going on with mid-level and senior level job-seekers, has a debilitating effect on the economy. While some say it justifies the need for more federal spending to maintain and create jobs, we say long term joblessness highlights the need for more pure entrepreneurship and innovation. If there aren’t enough higher level jobs in the corporate and government sector for these talented folks, then make it easier for them to start their own companies, hire/mentor others and built productive assets.

As Thomas Friedman noted in his op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, “If there has been one consistent weakness to this president’s public messaging, it is that it is often lacking in any excitement about innovation and entrepreneurship—the real drivers of our economy. In recent years, all the net new jobs in America have come from startups.”

Free agent economy

In many “idea” businesses, including software, media and marketing that are heavily dependent on out of the box thinking, you can get most of your work done by tapping into the “free agent economy” and using outsourced expertise. Here’s a great example of how companies are growing and moving the economy along by doing everything except hiring permanent full-time W-2 workers with benefits.

It’s like we’ve been saying throughout the economic downturn, there’s lots of work to be done, just not a lot of jobs in the traditional sense of the word “job.” Whether you’re a job seeker, an employer, a recruiter or an investor in companies, get used to the free agent economy. It’s here to stay.

Macro view

Despite the plague of high gas prices, long-term joblessness and a depressed housing market, Americans are still going to drive. And when they can’t squeeze another couple months out of their worn out vehicles they’re going to bite the bullet and get a new one. Driving (i.e. independent transportation) is part of our DNA and always will be. Case in point: Auto sales hit their highest level in four years in September, as nearly 1.2 million vehicles left the showroom—a 13 percent increase from a year ago. The cheap financing isn’t hurting either.

OUT TAKE: As auto makers and suppliers start to feel more flush, expect a significant surge in Super Bowl advertising this winter and stronger than expected ad spending across the board for a post-election year. Whether you’re in consumer or B2B, we advise getting your 2013 media buys in early this year as they’ll be more competition for desirable inventory than you’ve been used to fighting for since the recession began a half decade ago.

While the looming fiscal cliff on January 1 has been grabbing all the headlines, another large, but generally ignored cliff is about to wreak havoc with both individual and institutional investors—the amount of time that swollen private equity funds have to start making some deals or else return money to their investors. As this report related, “The private equity world is sitting on that 13-figure sum. It’s what the industry calls dry powder. If they don’t spend their cash pile snapping up acquisitions soon, they may have to return it to their investors.”

To make sure, we checked in with our friend Paul Brian Gibson, Portfolio Manager for Norwalk, CT-based Harborview Capital Management and he agreed.  “I’d say that’s just about right, and it’s been going on for quite some time, to the point where these private equity funds will have to start returning money to investors. Post-crash buyers finally came bidding, but sellers did not want to sell in the "hole", so like our residential real estate there was a strike.  Since then the amount of money private equity managers have had has grown, but the good deals have been done. You’ve seen M&A volumes down sharply as well (my investment banking friends are trying to hang on, but we should see more cuts into year-end by the JP Morgans and Bank of Americas of the world.


Conclusion

Let’s get these elections over with so we can start making long-term decisions, investing in great businesses, producing great products, services and marketing campaigns and keeping our customers and clients thrilled with what we do.


TAGS: auto sales, Paul Brian Gibson, Harborview Capital Management, jobs report, November election, free agent economy Thomas Friedman, startup companies


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