What Your Email Subject Lines, And Spam May Have In Common
February 22nd, 2008 by admin
Spam, it’s a dirty word. Recipients hate it, and email marketers know that if it isn’t controlled, it has the potential to discredit the email marketing way of life, and put a stop to it all together. Honest email marketers, which pretty much sums up all of us, do our utmost to make sure that our email campaigns are law abiding, and all above board, BUT have you considered your email subject lines, and what they say about you, and your email marketing reputation?
Sometimes you may find that you are getting your emails rejected or flagged before reaching your subscribers email inbox, or worse still, your subscribers are deleting your messages without opening them, since they had the same types of subject lines as the Spam that appears in their email boxes. The good news is that you can correct bad subject lines easily, simply by knowing what you should, and shouldn’t be saying in them.
Mystery Went Out With The Dinosaurs
It is said that one of the oldest tricks in the book
If you are like most people, you will agree that you hate it when you feel you have been mislead, or tricked into opening an email. So never do it to your subscriber list. In a recent study conducted by AOL, 96% of people described Spam as emails that were intended to purposely trick the recipients into opening them!
No Tricks, Just Truths
People don’t like being tricked. If you receive an email that is titled “how to fix your lawnmower, you expect to open the email and find information about lawnmowers, not something else. Don’t mislead people with your subject lines. Think of your email subject line much like the heading of an article you are writing for your website. Keep it relevant, and simple, relating directly to what your email content says.
Keeping It Personalized Doesn’t Always Work
Arguably the best way to get your emails read, and not mistaken for Spam is to use personal information in the subject line. This proves that you have permission to send emails to that address, right? Not always. Spammers often include names in subject lines to make their emails seem more legitimate.
Often, leads or subscribers may use bogus names that are used to flag unwanted mail, or Spam. Another problem with using names, or personal information in the subject lines with your emails is that, often, many people use nick names, or user names, using a name such as “me2u- see our once only offer ” for example will more than likely get your email deleted, rather than read.
Odd Stuff To Avoid
Avoid odd phrases, misspellings, punctuation and especially urgent calls to attention, such as “Act Now”. All of these above mentioned methods are designed to trick people, or Spam filters in order to get read. Urgent calls to attention are also considered to be aggressive forms of advertising, and not recommended use by legitimate email marketers.
Personalized Words To Avoid
Spammers often use personalized words, such as: we, you, your, and I, for example. This is a trick used by spammers to lull their recipients into feeling as though they know the sender, and are safe when opening the emails. It is also a ploy used to trick Spam filters into thinking that the sender is well known by the recipient. Those email marketers who are genuine, and have permission to send emails don’t need to use tricks like this to get their subscribers to open their emails.
If you are unable to avoid a personalized word in your email, such as “your new e-book has arrived” make sure that you don’t go overboard with these words, and keep your subject line looking natural and describing what the email is about.
Less Is More
Long subject lines always scream Spam, if you have something that is really interesting, you can surely sum it up in just a few words, and a few words is all that you really have. The average subject line setting, from most email services is around 50 characters, if you go over this quota the remaining words are chopped off, leaving your email looking unprofessional, and maybe even not making any sense. Ideally less is more, so keep your subject lines to 50 characters or less.
Is It Too Good To Be True?
Have you ever heard of the saying “if its too good to be true, then it probably is…” Spammers are notorious for using the “too good to be true” approach with their subject lines. Recipients often use a “too good to be true” subject line as a sure indicator that the content of an email is either Spam, or dangerous to them.
It can be difficult at times to contain yourself over a very exciting opportunity or breakthrough that you want to share with your subscribers. But try to keep your emotions in check. Make your subject lines exiting, and interesting, but believable at the same time.
These are just a few things that you can do to keep your subject lines from looking like spam. Take your own email experiences, and use that knowledge to make sure that you are sending the types of emails to your subscribers that you would happily open.
Remember: your subject lines need to be kept short, realistic, natural, and most of all, highly targeted to your subscribers interests. By following this formula, and avoiding the above spamming “don’ts”, you will be able to strengthen your email reputation, get more emails opened and read, as well as keep your loyal subscribers who will look forward to receiving your emails, and remember you for your helpfulness.
Article courtesy of Automatic Responders Blog
Tags: automatic responders, autoresponders, email marketing, email subject lines, spam
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