Email Subject Line Tips for Non-Profits
The English email marketers Adestra recently revealed the results of their research on email subject lines. They focused on many categories but one in particular was non-profits. They didn’t just come up with some general numbers/ideas though, they got down to the specifics with details to help email marketers. Maybe some of the information below will make it in to your next email campaign.
Donations:
First the worst performers: “gift,” “give,” “order,” “presents,” and “support” each failed to generate even average open, click, or click-to-open rates.
“Donate,” “join” and “member” scored above the average in opens, but were behind in clicks and click-to-open rates.
“Volunteer” fared well in open (55.6%) and click (44.9%) rates, while falling off the pace in click-to-opens (-6.9%). It was the same story for “help.”
Money:
Subject lines containing the £ symbol fared poorly, while those with “% off” hewed close to the average in each of the 3 metrics.
Events:
“Challenge,” “Christmas,” “event,” “marathon,” and “run” each performed better than average in open rates, but below-average in click and click-to-open rates.
Content:
This was a mixed bag, although overall most content terms fared poorly.
“Action,” “campaign,” “child,” “inspiration,” “lives,” “today,” “video,” “views,” and “win,” all failed in their attempts to generate responses from recipients, falling below the average in open, click, and click-to-open rates.
“Difference” had poor click (-70.8%) and click-to-open (-75.3%) rates, but boasted an above-average open rate (18.2%).
Of the group, “news,” “society” and “update” performed best, each generating above-average open and click rates. “News” in particular scored well with an open rate 60.7% higher than the average and a click rate 50.7% above-average. Even so, “news,” “society,” and “update” each had below-average click-to-open rates.
(via Marketing Charts)