Don't change the subject

Right now there's a lot of talk about subject lines, maybe too much talk, to misquote Bono. But it is an important issue, and one where opinion is sharply divided between the email cognoscenti, and your average corporate email marketer.

Industry advisers urge a conservative approach - be exciting and engaging without being spammy, yet users seem determined to "win free double your money" in the subject line wherever possible.

This week ASB, after much internal huffing and puffing, relaunched their email marketing programme with a new, and when you dug it out of the spam file, quite interesting newsletter.

But it did go straight into the spam folder.

Their subject line was: Celebrate 10 grand years with $10,000.

Now spam filters, especially here in NZ, are not known for their sophistication, so matching up a spammy subject line with a domain which had not sent anything for a while and coming up with Spam was a simple move.

How badly this will impact upon ASB we have yet to see - being a good citizen (even though they declined to use our services) I replied with some advice about subject lines, but of course it was sent from one of those Oh-so-clever noreply@ addresses.

When you are launching or relaunching a newsletter, initial audience engagement is a worry. Using a really exciting and enticing subject line is tempting - because getting recipients to open that all important first message is crucial. In fact, I predict that shortly we will see the arrival of a new type of email sub-specialist - the subject line writer!

Subject lines are another component of the design / delivery compromise equation - is it better to get sexy and compelling marketing to 50% of your audience of good solid marketing to 95% of them? (more on this soon).

To my mind, delivery into the inbox is crucial - so rein back a little with those subject lines.