Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

I could spend all day on a subject line, so I'll suggest the following.

Keep it short. Shorter subject lines generally outperform longer ones.

Keep it personal (or at least try to). Think about a subject line that a person would use when sending an email to another person. Emails with subject lines that sound like promotions will usually be treated as such.

If you're going to go for a headline look and feel, then think like a newspaper. You would not see:

"Reduce your operating costs while saving time and money" as a newspaper headline. You'd see:

"Reduce costs, save time and money"

I'd be careful about spam filters. Subjects with "reduce" and percentages and numbers are going to be trickier. Even "CPA" might be viewed as "all caps" by some filters, and "all caps" is not good.

I would probably prefer that the subject line focused only on the benefits, not the solution. Why lead off with "outsource routine accounting tasks..." when what they are really interested in is the savings...more specifically, making more money.

It might work better if you wrote an article or did a case study on how this works. Your challenge though is going to be avoiding bad phrases such as "earn more money" or "boost profit," which will trip you up on filters.

Depending on your list size, you should test before you roll out. Also, don't forget to resend your message with different subject lines to those who have not opened it.

I like the quntifying percentage included: (I added the word accounting into the mix).

Outsource and reduce accounting costs by up to 50%


I believe I read somewhere that having 'Save money" is so cliche that it's recognized in the spamming filers.

Hello,

I am not a subject line expert but short and to the point gets my attention.

More importantly, you need to test your subject line. Consider a split test of two subject lines. Don't do a mass email blast. Send to 5,000 with one subject line and 5000 with another at the same time. See which one pulls in the best response. Take the one that is best and send it to another 5,000 and send a second (new subject line) to another 5,000. You want to develop a control package/subject line. Then you want to keep testing to beat your control.

Develop a testing strategy!!.

Thank you

Tom

I agree with Inbox on all points, but want to especially emphasize benefit oriented copy in the subject line. Engagement begins when the subject line answers the classic mktg question, "What's In It For Me?' or is otherwise compelling.

So, your choices do articulate benefits, but they are cliched to the point of minimizing impact. In fact, most I think are too close to what spammers use to engage the reader. I too am wary of using percents.

It all comes down to save money, increase profits. Thousands of services could say the same thing, including other CPA firms, domestic or outsourced. My eyes glaze over (MEGO).

So, you seem to know that, and thus the question is how do you craft the line that will not produce MEGO?

What's REALLY compelling and unique about your service? Is outsourcing really that unique if 35% of firms do it?

What about turnaround time? Quality? Transparency? Not that I would use those terms, but maybe they can lead the thinking in another direction.

This is not apples to apples, but here's what I did for a client that worked very well. This was for an editorial article highlighted in an enewsletter for an engineering site;
Editor's chosen line; Aeroflex ATE gets Goepel boundary-scan option.

I read the story, and came up with this:
Agilent’s new Vee 8.5—Disgusting or Invaluable?

It worked.

Perhaps this out of box approach can suggest ideas to you.

Also, palmesdirect is on target--you've got to test, especially given your situtation. Depending on your list size, you could have up to 3-4 panels of 3-5M each, test 3-4 lines. Or, if you can do this, it's best: test small panels up to 20% max of your list on, say, Monday afternoon. Roll out with the winning line on Wednesday (in two days you'll get 80-95% of responses in).

If you haven't yet, testing time of day and day of week can be very beneficial.

You didn't mention the display From line, but your service comments suggest that your brand may not be that well known. In any case, I always recommend testing the From line until you come up with a control.


If you can, before you close this post, let us see what other ideas you come up with!

--Arthur Cohen

PS. Some other tips:

As noted shorter lines generally work better, under 55 char, or even less as some email clients only display up to 35 char. Subject lines with 49 or fewer characters get 75% higher CTR, 12.5% higher OR than those with 50+.

Readers often only look at the left one-third of the item, and only read on if they are engaged by those words.

Example: Which do you think works better?
GAO Report: US May Be Vulnerable To Illicit Trade of Diamonds.
US May Be Vulnerable To Illicit Trade of Diamonds—GAO Report.

Good Luck!

A few questions:

1) What emotion does the rest of the email appeal to? Greed? Deliverance from problems?

2) Can you tell us more about the body of the email and the offer?

3) Who is your target audience? What is their "pain"? What is your solution? Cost savings only? Or something else?


I've also found, like Arthur said, that reading the rest of the email or the article can be a good source of headlines or subject lines.

I actually like this one best:
35% of America’s most successful businesses outsource bookkeeping and accounting services. Do you?

I like it because it utilizes the emotion that typically illicits a high response rate: making people believe that "people like them" or "people they want to emulate" use your service -- a variation on shunning people, ie making them feel compelled. It also sounds more informational and less spammy.

I think you could shorten this tagline to: "Why successful businesses outsource accounting" or "Why America's top businesses outsource accounting"

I wouldn't put the word "outsource" or "overseas" in the subject line - it's the content of your email. You want them to read the email, so the subject line has to act like a headline to grab their interest.

Are your CPAs in the top 35%?
How can CPAs save you 50% yearly?

One Firm Saves 35% on Accounting - Here's How
He Saves 35% on Accounting Using Transacct

Is this going only to CPA firms, or is it going to a broader list? If it is going to a broader list, I would make it "One CPA Firm..."

No matter what you do with the subject line, I would move that last testimonial right to the top of the email. It's the most powerful statement in the whole thing. It even uses the name of the company.

Oh boy this is hard. Here's some variations of what's been suggested, and some other approaches. I avoided the percent, but could be substituted.


How to cut accounting costs in half
Cut accounting costs in half
Want to cut accounting costs in half?
Cut accounting costs
Cut accounting costs by 1/3
How CPA firms cut costs by 1/3
What’s your biggest expense?
Learn how CPA firms cut costs
Save half your accounting costs

--Arthur

Cut your overhead up to 47%
[or whatever the real number is - use an exact number - it's more credible than "nearly 50%"

Also, I have two more questions... what's the offer?? (what do they get when they respond - it's not clear from the text) and where's the call to action?

How many email addresses do you have?

Ack.

What you basically have is a list vendor with quality so poor that they are going to overmail the list until you get the number of opens that you want.

Right?

Let me ask you this, then...what do you care about which subject line works best? They're just going to keep beating on that tired list until you get what need, won't they?