StrongMail recently launched a white paper with 22 email marketing tips. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time yet to download it (if you want to, here’s the link).
However, I got StrongMail’s newsletter today and the company was kind enough to give away some tips. One of them (the first tip in the paper) is about testing subject lines in email marketing.
I have to admit that in my weekly newsletter, that provides an overview of the things we have posted here, we don’t do subject line testing (yet). But then again, if you’re a professional email marketer (as in doing email marketing for a company) testing subject lines is a must.
However, simply testing is not enough…
I guess I don’t have to explain why subject line testing is crucial. Your subject line is like the title of a book that shouts “buy me” to everyone that is looking for a good book on a specific topic.
Your subject line shouts “open me, read me, I have stuff for you, please, please”, kind of (and I'm not even talking about deliverability here).
Testing subject lines in real time is really the way to go
Despite that evident fact, I think the subject line is still all too often forgotten or implemented the wrong way (or better: using the wrong methods).
Since subject lines are so crucial in email marketing, it’s equally crucial that you test the effectiveness of them in real-time instead of doing some tests, then taking the subject line(s) that seemed to work and use them for a long-term strategy.
So testing in real time is really the way to go (funny, I just used almost exactly the same words as StrongMail, well a bit off-topic, I know).
Anyway, you can get the full paper, I stole the tip from here.
That’s it, folks. How do you treat and test your subject lines?
Some related posts:
– Email marketing: socialized subject lines will reduce spam complaints
– Email subject lines are the new Twitter for emarketers
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