Howard J. Sewell — March 27, 2018 — March 27, 2018
Subject line testing is that one email best practice that all B2B marketers know is a good idea, and yet very few of us do it consistently. The common excuse is time: when you’re under the gun to get that Webinar invitation out by next week, the last thing you need is one more complexity added to the process.
Consistent subject line testing, however, executed correctly, can be a main driver for achieving steady improvement in open rates and overall email performance. One of the key factors to effective testing is specificity: a subject line pair should isolate one, single element – a word, a phrase – as the testing variable. Testing two entirely different subject lines may provide you a winner and loser, but you’ll have no idea why one version performed better than the other. Knowing why one subject line generated a higher response is a learning you can then continue to leverage going forward.
To make the process of choosing testing pairs easier, here’s a handy list of test ideas to use as a reference for your next campaign:
1. Specific vs. General
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2. Personalization (e.g. Name, Location, Industry)
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3. Urgency
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4. Company Name/Branding
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5. Positive vs. Negative
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6. Copy Length
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7. Statement vs. Question
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8. Numbers as Digits vs. Words
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9. Offer vs. No Offer
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10. Topic vs. Benefit
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