Are Your Subject Lines Boring Enough?

For the best results, sometimes you just have to get to the point

“This is going to be gelato fun.”

That subject line is sitting in my inbox. I’m partial to puns and I like frozen treats, so it caught my attention. I saw it in the flood of promotional emails. I even clicked to open it. My guess is some copywriter wrote at least a dozen different options, and the client chose it with a chuckle. It’s concise. It displays the brand’s personality. It stands out. A win, right? Not necessarily.

Here’s the scoop. Once I got into this email featuring ice cream-hued accessory picks, I quickly trashed it. My curiosity was sated, and I wasn’t in the market for a popsicle-colored purse.

Therein lies the problem with witty subject lines. They often don’t tell the reader what they’re going to get when they click. So while they might have good open rates, the more important downstream metrics, like click-to-open, cart visits, and purchases, tell a different story. There you’ll see that boring triumphs and straight-forward sells.

As our Senior Email Marketing Manager, Michael Kinstlinger, puts it, “the key is making the subject line match the creative experience, so sometimes, the best subject lines are those that let the person know exactly what you’re selling and why they should care.” So while “Basic tees starting at $10” isn’t sexy, it gets the job done.

All this isn’t to say you can’t sprinkle in some smart, funny, and irreverent subject lines. They can be the building blocks of a valuable email campaign, help create lasting customer relationships, or increase interest in certain email types that the audience might otherwise avoid (re-engagement, database-building, cart abandonment, etc.). The key is knowing when well-crafted makes sense and when boring takes the ice cream cake.

Want to learn more about how Havas Helia can up your email marketing game? Contact us at hello@havashelia.com.