More Great Affiliate Marketing Tips and Info
Things just kept getting better in my inbox today. Earlier I posted an excellent advice article for affiliate marketers on the My Wizard Ads website (click on title above), and then lo and behold in comes another! For all us email marketers, take note... plenty of meaty information below!
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Affiliate Email Marketing Subject Lines that Work
September 19th, 2006
Nicky Senyard, CEO Share Results
Affiliate email marketers understand that email subject lines are the hooks that entice readers. If affiliates focused on email marketing have a strong grasp of their target audience (subscription base) and understand how to relate interest and relevancy to the reader, then high open rates for promotional and newsletter emails will follow.
Keeping your readers in mind, here are some guidelines for successful email subject lines that Share Results has used over the years:
Branding counts
Make sure your opt-in affiliate mailing list readers immediately recognize your emails as a trusted source, by reinforcing branded “From” fields with subject lines that also include your brand and/or domain name.
Segment, then personalize
No, we’re not suggesting affiliates write every subject line as “Jane Doe – One Day Only Cat Toy Rebates for Fluffy”. Instead, be sure to segment your mailing lists as much as possible, and create custom email subject lines catering to niche interests. [Editor’s note: If you do happen to know your customer’s name, and their cat’s name, by all means use it!]
Spam filters
Know what content gets blocked by spam filters at the ISP, server and individual account holder level and test every subject line with spam content checking services. Create numerous test accounts with as many free email providers as possible, and send test emails to those accounts.
Reader filters
Guard against sensationalism, overly promotional subject lines, or offers that sound too good to be true. Slick sales pitches turn off most readers even if they’ve made it through spam filter algorithms.
Keep it short
Studies back that email subject lines of 50 characters or less generally have higher response rates, so pare content down to the bare minimum.
Attention grabbers
This is by far the most controversial element in email subject line copywriting. Many email affiliate marketers favor the hard-sell content that delivers offers, states benefits, stresses urgency or evokes curiosity, lines like “Last Minute Baby Shower Gifts – 10% Off” “Only 5 days left… Save on Custom Baby Blankets” and “6 Newborn Essentials for First-time Parents”. Other affiliates argue that simple descriptive subject lines such as “Koo Koo Bear Kids Newsletter – October 2006” are an affiliate marketer’s best bet. As with everything affiliate marketing, test your audience to find out what they prefer.
Track
Always analyze which subject lines generate the highest open and clickthrough rates, and tweak future mailings accordingly. Testing and re-testing should be the mantra of every affiliate email marketer, and it’s often the first activity dropped by busy affiliates!
So one of the key questions email marketers ask: Do today’s consumers, oversaturated by advertising messages, still respond to traditional benefit-oriented email subject lines?
For affiliate email marketers, the answer is… it depends!
Top email advice from AffiliatePrograms.com
A 2006 study published by MailChimp, a product of The Rocket Science Group, tested over 40 million emails sent by its subscribers to at least 100 recipients each, and yanked out the ones with the highest open and clickthrough rates and the lowest, 20 from each group.
The ones with the best open rates (averaging 60% to 87%) bear a striking similarity to each other.
Typical best performer email subject lines include such exciting examples as:
“[COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter”
“Eye on the [COMPANYNAME] Update (Oct 31 - Nov 4)”
“[COMPANYNAME] Newsletter - February 2006”
“Happy Holidays from [COMPANYNAME]”
Of the top 20 email subject lines, 17 included the company or brand name, and 13 featured words like “newsletter” “news” “update” “upcoming events” and “invite”.
Now let’s take a look at the worst performers, with open rates between 1% and 4%.
Lines from this group included:
“Last Minute Gift - We Have The Answer”
“Valentines - Shop Early & Save 10%”
“Need More Advertising Value From Your Marketing Partner?”
Only 8 featured a company name or brand, and only 1 included “news”. Most fell into the pure benefit lead trap that screams “Hey –this is an ad! Read this so I can sell you something!” that jaded consumers are quick to reject.
Of course, there are a number of factors influencing how email subject lines are received, such as the make-up of an opt-in mailing list, brand strength, the length of time readers have been subscribed, deliverability, product market awareness and more. It would have also been interesting to pull not only the top and bottom 20 lines, but also focus on individual company case studies, to see if the [Company Name] – [News] subject line consistently had the best open rates.
What you can always count on with subject lines is that there is no one magical formula to write them! At Share Results, we always aim to cover two bases: make sure the subject line reflects our email’s content, and continue to “mix it up” through experimentation.
About the Author
Nicky Senyard, CEO ShareResultsNicky Senyard is CEO of Share Results, a boutique affiliate network working exclusively with large brands and niche merchants as committed to affiliate partnerships as we are. Discover affiliate programs powered by Share Results’ affiliate software and affiliate management services, including eDiets, KooKoo Bear Kids, Zazzle and Real Networks: ShareResults.
Reference: affiliate,advertising, marketing, classifieds
===========================
Affiliate Email Marketing Subject Lines that Work
September 19th, 2006
Nicky Senyard, CEO Share Results
Affiliate email marketers understand that email subject lines are the hooks that entice readers. If affiliates focused on email marketing have a strong grasp of their target audience (subscription base) and understand how to relate interest and relevancy to the reader, then high open rates for promotional and newsletter emails will follow.
Keeping your readers in mind, here are some guidelines for successful email subject lines that Share Results has used over the years:
Branding counts
Make sure your opt-in affiliate mailing list readers immediately recognize your emails as a trusted source, by reinforcing branded “From” fields with subject lines that also include your brand and/or domain name.
Segment, then personalize
No, we’re not suggesting affiliates write every subject line as “Jane Doe – One Day Only Cat Toy Rebates for Fluffy”. Instead, be sure to segment your mailing lists as much as possible, and create custom email subject lines catering to niche interests. [Editor’s note: If you do happen to know your customer’s name, and their cat’s name, by all means use it!]
Spam filters
Know what content gets blocked by spam filters at the ISP, server and individual account holder level and test every subject line with spam content checking services. Create numerous test accounts with as many free email providers as possible, and send test emails to those accounts.
Reader filters
Guard against sensationalism, overly promotional subject lines, or offers that sound too good to be true. Slick sales pitches turn off most readers even if they’ve made it through spam filter algorithms.
Keep it short
Studies back that email subject lines of 50 characters or less generally have higher response rates, so pare content down to the bare minimum.
Attention grabbers
This is by far the most controversial element in email subject line copywriting. Many email affiliate marketers favor the hard-sell content that delivers offers, states benefits, stresses urgency or evokes curiosity, lines like “Last Minute Baby Shower Gifts – 10% Off” “Only 5 days left… Save on Custom Baby Blankets” and “6 Newborn Essentials for First-time Parents”. Other affiliates argue that simple descriptive subject lines such as “Koo Koo Bear Kids Newsletter – October 2006” are an affiliate marketer’s best bet. As with everything affiliate marketing, test your audience to find out what they prefer.
Track
Always analyze which subject lines generate the highest open and clickthrough rates, and tweak future mailings accordingly. Testing and re-testing should be the mantra of every affiliate email marketer, and it’s often the first activity dropped by busy affiliates!
So one of the key questions email marketers ask: Do today’s consumers, oversaturated by advertising messages, still respond to traditional benefit-oriented email subject lines?
For affiliate email marketers, the answer is… it depends!
Top email advice from AffiliatePrograms.com
A 2006 study published by MailChimp, a product of The Rocket Science Group, tested over 40 million emails sent by its subscribers to at least 100 recipients each, and yanked out the ones with the highest open and clickthrough rates and the lowest, 20 from each group.
The ones with the best open rates (averaging 60% to 87%) bear a striking similarity to each other.
Typical best performer email subject lines include such exciting examples as:
“[COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter”
“Eye on the [COMPANYNAME] Update (Oct 31 - Nov 4)”
“[COMPANYNAME] Newsletter - February 2006”
“Happy Holidays from [COMPANYNAME]”
Of the top 20 email subject lines, 17 included the company or brand name, and 13 featured words like “newsletter” “news” “update” “upcoming events” and “invite”.
Now let’s take a look at the worst performers, with open rates between 1% and 4%.
Lines from this group included:
“Last Minute Gift - We Have The Answer”
“Valentines - Shop Early & Save 10%”
“Need More Advertising Value From Your Marketing Partner?”
Only 8 featured a company name or brand, and only 1 included “news”. Most fell into the pure benefit lead trap that screams “Hey –this is an ad! Read this so I can sell you something!” that jaded consumers are quick to reject.
Of course, there are a number of factors influencing how email subject lines are received, such as the make-up of an opt-in mailing list, brand strength, the length of time readers have been subscribed, deliverability, product market awareness and more. It would have also been interesting to pull not only the top and bottom 20 lines, but also focus on individual company case studies, to see if the [Company Name] – [News] subject line consistently had the best open rates.
What you can always count on with subject lines is that there is no one magical formula to write them! At Share Results, we always aim to cover two bases: make sure the subject line reflects our email’s content, and continue to “mix it up” through experimentation.
About the Author
Nicky Senyard, CEO ShareResultsNicky Senyard is CEO of Share Results, a boutique affiliate network working exclusively with large brands and niche merchants as committed to affiliate partnerships as we are. Discover affiliate programs powered by Share Results’ affiliate software and affiliate management services, including eDiets, KooKoo Bear Kids, Zazzle and Real Networks: ShareResults.
Reference: affiliate,advertising, marketing, classifieds
posted by OIMS at
10:43 PM
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