Subject Lines Live – Best of May 2021

“The only things guaranteed in life are Death, taxes, and emails” – Benjamin Franklin (Spotler remix).

What can we take away from the subject lines that performed best in May 2021?

The Top 5 of the month

Claim your free thank you gift

Who doesn’t love a free gift?!

A bit of background; this campaign was sent to customers, thanking them for remaining highly engaged with the sender over the previous 12 months. The gift in question was a gilet with the sender’s logo, which is a clever piece of brand building/ awareness as well.

Nobody needs to be told it’s been a tough year for businesses but reaching out with a physical gesture of appreciation is a nice touch that sets the sender apart. Making the gift genuinely usable not only puts your logo out and about but means it is likely to be used and appreciated. A logo fridge magnet might be cheap and easy to package but will it generate the positive awareness you’re after?

Please confirm your opt in

Like an old sports injury, GDPR keeps flaring to give marketers a hard time. One way to be fully compliant and worry-free is to use a “confirmed opt-in” setup. This means sending an email like this one that directly and specifically asks for permission to send future marketing emails.

The fact that engagement with this email is above 50% should be cause for celebration. If more than half of your audience is happy to keep receiving comms from you, then you’re clearly adding quite a lot of value.

New Ways of Working – Survey – Please Respond

If you haven’t been sent a survey about the future of work in the last month or two, you’re in a very small group!

With the UK seemingly on track to remove all COVID-19 restrictions towards the end of June, companies are figuring out how work will function going forward. Within Spotler, there are many opinions about returning to the office, with some having fully immersed themselves in remote culture, and some super-keen to be back in HQ. GatorSurvey is having a very busy month indeed!

Thank you for your membership application to IHEEM

As a punter, it is beyond frustrating when you try to begin a process, such as applying for a membership, and you hear nothing. Zilch. Crickets.

Emails like this one bridge the gap very neatly. Your leads aren’t opposed to processes that take a while but letting them know that wheels are busy turning and you haven’t forgotten them keeps them engaged.

#[Person/FirstName]#, you asked to hear from us

If you’re doing segmentation right, not every one of your leads will hear from you with the same regularity. If it’s been a while since your last contact, it can be good to remind your reader that they did choose to hear from you at some point in the past.

This specific example is a short-term nudge, aimed at those who began the sign-up process on the sender’s website, but did not complete the final steps. Sent after a 2 day wait, it is a “one last heave” effort to get slightly committed leads fully into the funnel.

The Best of the rest

In comparison to April’s overall top 5, the highest performers in May were slightly shorter, falling in the 41-50 character range.

Emojis made a slightly stronger showing this month, appearing in 5% of subject lines in May versus 4% in April. It is noteworthy that emojis were not used to replace words but as enhancements. For example, “ Brain Power ” rather than “ ” or “ Power ”.

Both personalisation and inclusion of the sender’s name remained at the same level as in April, appearing in 11% and 15% of subject lines respectively. The avoidance of personalisation is often down to a lack of confidence in the data. The best way to deal with this is to structure your subject line so that the absence is not jarring. “What could [blank] do with Spotler?” does not flow well. If you move the name to the beginning, it becomes smoother “What could you do with Spotler” / “Amy what could you do with Spotler?”