I get email. Too much email. So much, I don’t open most of it. But as part of my job, on the marketing side of things, I write and send emails pitching our product: events with networking and panel discussions. I need potential attendees to open and read those emails. How do I do that?
The crucial first step is to assign an email a subject that makes someone want to open it. As a brainstorming exercise, I collected emails to me that I opened. Then I ranked the subjects of the emails based on the likelihood I'd open them. (I excluded automated order/reservation/delivery confirmation emails.) By extension, I can imagine that other folks may open emails for similar reasons.
In the examples below, the name before the colon is the email’s From field; the text after the colon is the subject line. I’ve highlighted the key word(s) for me in the examples.
- A personal email sent from a friend or coworker.
- A non-personal email with a person's name I know in the subject. Most Facebook messages fall into this category; I like to see what people are writing about my status, photo, link, etc. Many LinkedIn messages fall into this category, too.
- A non-personal email with the name of a brand, event or artist I know in the subject.
Examples:- Gilt Group: Woolrich, PF Flyers, Allegri, Shipley + Halmos, Kid Robot and LNA and more Starts Today at Noon ET
- Friends of Laphroaig: Laphroaig® Scotch at the New Jersey Whisky Classic
- The Museum of Modern Art: February Membership Happenings
- openhousenewyork: OHNY in 2010
- New York Magazine: Renewal Alert!
- David Byrne: HERE LIES LOVE: THINGS TO COME
- The Main Squeeze Orchestra: 2009 Holiday Show, Sunday Dec 20th
- A non-personal email with a general topic I know in the subject.
Examples:- TastingTable NYC: Get cult pork before the chefs do
- TastingTable NYC: Brooklyn-made bourbon, fresh off the still
- New York Magazine: An App For Your Appetite
- UrbanDaddy: This Scotch Has Your Name on It | Sponsored Love
- Crate and Barrel: Making spirits (the drinking kind) brighter. Free Shipping details...
Conclusions:
I will, on occassion, open an email like this one. But not as many as I’d have guessed:
- Barnes & Noble: 25% Coupon, Plus 50% Off More than 50 Books
It’s too open-ended. Maybe I’ll at least click-through to see what those 50 books are. Maybe.
The obvious conclusion is that names are key. Topics may be important to me but I’m more likely to open an email with a name I know. I will open an email if I know the sender, I know a name in the subject line or I’m at least familiar with a name in the subject line. An ideal email promotion for my purpose might be a testimonial email that I assign a stalwart in the industry to send on my behalf (to his own contact list and/or my contact list). Or a subject line in my own email promotions could include the most-popular names of the speakers at the event being promoted.