How to write emails your customers will want to open

Customers are much more likely to open marketing emails if the subject line of the email is drafted in a compelling way, new research shows.

Online Media Daily reports that a chap by the name of Dela Quist, the chief executive of British email marketing Alchemy Worx, has studied the effect of 660 different subject lines sent with more than 250 million email messages over the past two years.

Quist has found that the subject in messages most likely to get customers clicking is about 50 characters long and contains a powerful discount offer – for example, “30% off winter getaway flights to Broome”.

Weirdly, according to Quist, people are most likely to open emails with 50 or 80 character subject lines, but tend to ignore them when the subject line is 60 or 70 characters long.

In general it is better to go for longer subject lines in order to maximise your chance of saying something that captures customer attention, Quist says.

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