Many retailers still fail to do crucial e-mail subject line testing

Many retailers still don’t test e-mail subject lines even though the wrong words or phrases can result in the message being filtered out by a Spam filter or deleted without being read by the consumer, says Jordan Ayan, CEO of e-mail service provider SubscriberMail.

At a recent direct marketing trade association meeting, nearly 40% of 100 attendees surveyed say they don’t test subject lines of e-mail marketing pieces before launching the campaign, Ayan says. “The subject line is probably the most relevant piece of content that comes in a message,” he says. “If you look in your own e-mail box, it’s the one thing you’re probably going to look at when the message comes through.”

Even if an e-mail makes it through a spam filter, consumers are likely to trash messages carrying subject lines in all capital letters or with words such as “100% free” or “Work from Home” that are associated with junk mail, Ayan says.

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SubscriberMail recently listed problematic words and phrases in a white paper entitled “The Seven Dirty Words you can’t say in subject lines; plus 100 others.”

“What retailers want to do is avoid using those words,” Ayan says. “But more importantly than to avoid using the words is to test the subject lines they plan to use.”

He suggest a retailer test different subject lines on a small percentage of its mailing list to ensure that messages get through and that recipients are opening and responding to the e-mails. Results generally are available within 24 to 48 hours. The retailers can then use the subject lines generating the greatest number of responses for the rest of the mailing list.

And testing subject lines is only one component of successful e-mail marketing campaigns, Ayan says. Retailers also must make sure that messages are relevant and don’t contain any language that would trigger a spam filter and that e-mails are sent only to consumers who request them.

The SubscriberMail white paper can be downloaded for free at www.subscribermail.com/dirtywords.