Denise ChanWe’re a week out from Black Friday, what some would consider the official start of the holiday season. You’ve likely received a few promotional emails in your inbox already: gift guides, holiday style ideas, recipes for dinner parties…I’ve gotten them too. For email marketers, the pressure is on to come up with witty, clickable subject lines. There’s so much focus on monitoring what your competitors are saying, plus topping the subject lines that have driven high open rates in the past. At a certain point, it’s time to look beyond the subject line and focus on what’s within. Let your inner email beauty — your content — shine. Here are three reasons why:
Play the long game
While it’s true that the subject line is your customers’ first point of contact with your email and what will ultimately drive them to open it, the content is what makes a lasting impression. Focus on consistently delivering highly relevant, interesting content to your subscribers and you’ll build up your reputation and earn their trust. Subscribers will then be more likely to open your emails regardless of their subject line. Having a catchy subject line is simply the “cherry on top.” They’ll be looking forward to what they can take away from what’s within.
Fit for all screens
No matter how hard you try (unless you keep it to two or three words), your subject lines will likely be cut off by the preview in different browsers or devices. There’s more space to work within the email body. The content inside the email is arguably more responsive than the subject line.
To make the most of the responsiveness of the “inner content,” use ALT text and be mindful of the fold. ALT text is a kind of HTML safety net for your email images: if by chance a certain browser or email client cannot display an image, the ALT text will show in place of it, with a short caption.
The fold is where the preview of the content ends and you need to scroll down to read more. While the above-the-fold area of the email body provides much more space than a subject line does, be sure the content here is enticing enough to make readers continue to scroll.
The real money driver
Ultimately, your goal is to drive your emails onto your website or to interact with your product in some way. The most compelling content is your email call-to-action, which will directly drive customers to another platform where you can continue to interact with them. It’s the real revenue driver.
As Plated’s Emily Grant brought up recently during a Hacking The Inbox panel, marketers should be mindful of tracking click-to-open-rates (CTOR) in addition to the open-rate, CTOR’s more popular counterpart. CTOR will measure the number of subscribers that opened and how many clicked. While it varies depending on the type of business and/or campaign, a general rule of thumb is that a good CTOR for promotional campaign is 20-30%, and 30%-40% or higher for triggered campaigns.
Now, get back to working on your campaigns and focus less on “judging an email by its cover.” It’s the inner content that counts.
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