In the wake of the rise of Social Media and contrary to rumor, email isn't dead (and neither are newsletters!)
Here are a handful of email quotables, stats, facts and downright good posts about email marketing that I often refer to.
25% of people complain they dislike all the marketing clutter they get, yet 40% claimed to enjoy getting lots of marketing emails from favorite brands and deal services each week.
source: 2012 Blue Kangaroo Survey on Marketing Emails
64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line.
source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012
61% of people state that "not being interested in an email" was the most common reason for not opening an email, followed by "getting too many emails.
source: Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2012
40% of B2B marketers rated the leads generated by email marketing (house list) as high quality.
Souce: Software Advice Survey
The average clickthrough rate for triggered emails is more than double the rate for mass emails.
Source: epsilon
For B2B companies, subject lines that contained terms such as “money,” “revenue,” and “profit” perform the highest.
Source: Adestra July '12 report
Subject lines that contained terms such as “ROI,” “asset,” and “industry" perform the lowest.
Source: Adestra July '12 report
Discount terms in subject lines generally performed below average. “Sale” was the outlier, above average 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, save for “voucher,” which had above average opens (6.5%). “Early bird” was the worst performer in terms of clicks (-71.6%) and click-to-opens (-67.6%).
source: Adestra July '12 report
“Latest” was the only benefit-related term to see above average clicks (8.8%) and click-to-opens (9%), while “special,” “exclusive,” and “innovate” -- while performing about average in opens -- fared far more poorly in clicks and click-to-opens.
source: Adestra July '12 report
Subject lines with 30 or fewer characters performed above average in opens, clicks, and click-to-opens.
Subject lines fewer than 10 characters long boasted an open rate of 58%, 38% higher than the next highest open rate, for subject lines of 50-59 characters in length
source: Adestra July '12 report
News-related terms in subject lines perform fair but better than discount-related 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 (as well as clicks and opens), with “newsletter” being the only term to perform below average in each metric. “Alert” saw the best differential for clicks (78.3%), while “news” did best for opens (30.9%)
source: Adestra July '12 report
Personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened. However, personalized emails had a clickthrough rate 16.5% lower than the average, and a click-to-open rate 31.7% below the average.
B2B vs B2C
Quite simply, the more words the better for the B2B sector - anything over 16 words however can deliver on both opens and clicks.
For B2C, a 20 word subject line appears to be clear winner, delivering a massive 115% uplift in open rates and 85% uplift in clicks!
Be clear about what your email is about and the trust of your recipients will follow. Money talks in the B2B sector, with subject lines containing monetary symbols, monetary phrases such as “turnover”, “revenue” and “profit” achieving fantastic results, but avoid “B2B”, “Business” and “industry”. Video content rules in the B2C sector, with the word “video” boosting open and click through rates dramatically.
Avoid “free and “half price”, opt for “% off ” instead and see the positive impact this makes.
source: Adestra
Short subject lines drive both opens and response. If it’s a donation campaign then this is critical!
However, if it’s an awareness campaign then longer subject lines will drastically improve open rates. The words ‘appeal’ and ‘donate’ have lost their, well, appeal with recipients. Going back to basics with ‘give’ can increase results dramatically.
If you want to increase your opens by 41% mention ‘kittens’, but it will drop 28% if you mention ‘children’ – strange, but true!
source: Adestra
With the ecommerce sector, character and word count results are paradoxical. The choice is clear – shorter subject lines drive clicks, and longer subject lines drive opens.
You need to consider what your objectives are and then construct your subject lines accordingly. Subject lines with 70 characters also appear to provide a huge uplift in click throughs. ‘Coupon’ and ‘voucher’ are out and ‘% off’ and ‘Summer sale’ are in – if you want to drive both opens and clicks.
source: Adestra
The best click through rate comes from 15 words/120 characters upwards. Focusing on the benefits of attending a given event – be it the exhibitors, speakers, show features or whatever makes your show special.
The words ‘conference’, ‘seminar’ and ‘webinar’ have much less impact than selling the benefits in the subject line. Mentioning price, discounts or using currency symbols can create a big uplift. Personalisation is also important here.
source: Adestra
For publishers, the results are quite clear – a higher word count delivers more opens and click through rates. Similar to the events sector, sell the benefits and give more information about what your email contains, and your responses will increase. “Newsletter” or “Forecast” or “Intelligence” are to be avoided, while “Bulletin” or “Alert” will see your rates increase. Use cutting edge content - “Exclusive”, “Video” and “Interview” are all good.
source: Adestra
Snappy” subject lines of 1-2 words easily performed best in each of the metrics, while those with more than 14 words also performed above average. All other word count groups skewed closely to the average.
Source: Adestra July '12 report
Some content terms perform better than others in subject lines. “Issue” (8.5%) and “top stories” (5.9%) were the only to perform above average in click-to-opens. “Research,” “interview,” and “video” scored above average for opens, but below average for clicks and click-to-opens.
source: Adestra July '12 report
Subject lines containing the € symbol were above average in opens (2.9%), but below average in clicks (-8.2%) and click-to-opens (-10.8%).
source: Adestra July 12 report
You/your” were the most common words, used in 18.7% of subject lines, up 3.4% year over year, followed by “off” and “get,” both in 16.6% of emails, and both up 5.2% year over year.
23 Tweetable Stats on Email Marketing Tactics and Trends
source: inboundmarketing
Brand and Subject Lines Fuel Email Opens; Clutter Drives Users Away Originally Published on MarketingCharts Developing strong relationships with consumers and writing strong subject lines appear to be the best ways to ensure email opens, according to [download page]
source: March 2012 survey results from Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) and Constant Contact.
