Sandwich boards give restaurants and cafes the canvas they desperately need to grab your attention as you walk by on a street jam-packed with invitations to come inside. Quickly pitching daily specials and showing off some personality with illustrations or witty slogans, sandwich boards can say more than the sign above the door, all while looking you straight in the eye and giving the restaurant a chance to convince you to swing in on a whim. Subject lines play a very similar role. They elbow for attention among hoards of incessant emails sent to somebody whose primary objective is to find and read the useful information, trash the rest and move on with their day as fast as is humanly possible.
Low, flat or declining open rates are especially frustrating because they mean your email campaign is failing at a very early point – preventing the message contained inside your email from having even a chance to convert. Since a campaign’s subject line is likely the biggest factor in determining your open rates (though, time of day, the “from name” and the “preheader” also play roles), optimizing it goes a long way to increasing conversions. But subject line optimization is a mix of art, science and testing.
You can’t measure any subject line’s true effectiveness without some metrics and a little competition.
You’ve likely heard various legends of subject line do’s and don’ts. DO make it between 45-60 characters. DON’T use ALL CAPS or exclamation points. DO avoid fabled spam words like “Free” or “Diet.” Well, the fact of the matter is that experts disagree on many of these points. Sure, there are some hard and fast rules, but they have more to do with avoiding overt deception than some expert understanding of mystical email user behavior.
So, what exactly may cause a recipient to open or not open an email? It may often go without saying, but it’s worth remembering that we are most likely to open emails that proclaim to contain details we want to read. The craft – which any email user can observe in their own inbox, executed with varying degrees of success – lies in staying genuinely informative while simultaneously piquing curiosity.
Health care email campaigns are commonly one of three types of messages. Each provides opportunities to get creative.
1. Events – “Join us this weekend for our event”
Event campaigns are a great opportunity to utilize localization in your campaign’s subject line. “Healthy fun for kids in north Kansas City this weekend” implies an irresistible nearby convenience. Don’t be shy about asking questions, either. “Looking for something fun to do with your kids this weekend?” may perform even better. Try shorter subject lines. “We heard kids love bouncy houses” might reference just a single station at the weekend’s event, but in the inbox your email will stick out like a cute little food truck in the middle of Times Square.
2. Newsletters – “Your Health Digest – August 2016”
Since health care newsletters usually contain various wellness tips, stories and events, you can often have your pick of a particularly intriguing one and highlight its benefits. For example, “Your Health Digest: How to forever change your eating habits”, utilizes the wildly successful How-To copywriting approach when referencing a healthy eating course that is listed alongside several other topics. If you’re unsure which topic or course may generate the highest open rate, try testing headlines for a couple of them. It’s also important to reference the benefit to the recipient – “How to forever change your eating habits” – rather than the title of the course. Benefits speak much louder than methodologies.
3. Announcements – “Dr. Smith has joined our team of physicians”
The power of something new never goes out of style. For announcements and events, utilize phrases like “Introducing” or “Now open!” For example, instead of “We welcome Dr. Smith to our team”, try “Introducing Dr. Smith, our newest brain surgeon”. If you’ve opened a new location, “Now Open! Our newest, state-of-the-art facility in Kansas City” may generate more opens than “State Line Urgent Care opens to the public” because the former’s description begs for the answer contained within. What type of facility is it? Where is it located? And, don’t worry, exclamation points are not automatic spam triggers.
These are just a few examples meant to help get those creative sandwich board juices flowing. Strictly descriptive subject lines can be appropriate at times. But you can’t measure any subject line’s true effectiveness without some metrics and a little competition. When you’ve settled on a couple potential subject lines, the next step is to start deploying your campaign with an A/B test. You can deploy Subject Line A to 10% of your recipients and Subject Line B to another 10%. After you’ve given those recipients a day or so to open the email, review the open rates and send the winning subject line to the remaining 80% of your recipient list. For the next similar deployment, pit your winning subject line tactic up against a new potential winner. Then you’ll be on your way to true subject line optimization.
Before you start your journey, I offer one final note. Keep your eyes on the prize that is purely increasing your campaign’s open rates. Just like a restaurant’s sandwich board can’t ensure a prompt and educated run down of the wine list after the customer is seated, a subject line has to hand off the conversion baton to solid email design and body copy. It’s a rare subject line that will affect anything beyond the open rates. But that early step is a vital one, if just to give your email a chance.
As a web designer and developer, Jonathan keeps his ear close to the ground for the latest in web advancements and best practices. Always designing with the end-user in mind, Jonathan presents unique contemporary web sites and emails that reinforce branding standards. Before joining LionShare in 2011, Jonathan spent five years designing and developing both print and digital media. His more specialized role at LionShare helps feed his desire to become an efficient master of web and email development. To learn more about sending successful email campaigns, please contact us at 1-800-928-0712.
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