How To Get Your Emails Opened - A Test

One of the main problems in Email marketing, apart from all kind of obstacles to get your emails delivered, is
how to get the recipients to open your emails.

I ran another test a couple of days ago.

I sent out an email to my list about my slow laptop problems and how I fixed them.

The message to my list was almost similar as the post right above here.
The only thing different was the first line, where I greet my reader.

I ran a split test, using two subject lines:

This could happen to you too {!firstname_fix}
({!firstname_fix} is the Aweber variable that will insert subscribers first name)
How I fixed my slow laptop

The first subject line is a generic one, trying to arouse curiosity about WHAT could happen to the reader. In general, when the line is a good one, that would lead to many people opening the message and in there a selection would take place of readers interested in the topic.

The second pinpoints the exact problem and entices people with the same problems to read my solutions. The subject line already makes a shift between interested and non-interested readers. If you don’t have a slow computer, there’s no need to open that mail.
That was the risk I took with this one.

So, how did that work out?

Before I tell you, you need to know that my list is divided in three: newbie, intermediate and experienced marketers.
Whenever someone subscribes, they have to fill that in.
The main reason for doing so, is to send them to different educational autoresponder series depending on their experience.

Of course, over time, intermediates get more experienced and newbies become intermediates or even experienced, so there is not much scientific value in the figures below.

Here are the results:

	How I fixed my slow laptop	This could happen to you too {!firstname_fix}
Newbies	61%	39%
Intermediates	71%	29%
Experienced	70%	30%

It seems very clear which one won.
Of course, there’s the topic we have to take into account, which seems to be a real problem, judging by these figures.

This test makes it again very clear, that we always have to test, test, test.

Anyone wants to comment on this?

Tags: Email Marketing, subject headers