The Single Biggest Key to Email Marketing Success

It’s the subject line and Jim Ackerman has some tips for writing a good one.

Jim Ackerman is a retail jewelry marketing expert who has spoken to jewelry retailers at JA New York, JCK, The Smart Jewelry Show and others. He can be reached at 800-584-7585, ext. 3 or by email at mail@ascendmarketing.com.

Wouldn’t it be nice if email marketing could really do what we hoped it would do all along? That is, replace all that expensive direct mail, print and broadcast marketing that drives us crazy.

Trouble is, so far, email hasn’t successfully been that magic pill or silver bullet. But some of that is your own fault because, the truth is, you’re probably doing it wrong.

I can’t tell you the number of times clients ask me to evaluate email blasts that look like print ads except they’re on a computer screen.

Of course they do, as Constant Contact, Mail Chimp and the others all make it easy to do just that and because they make it easy, we tend to think that’s the best way to do it.

But is it? Not necessarily, according to the research, which shows that text emails are more likely to produce a response than fancy, graphic emails in many--in fact perhaps most--cases.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you really want better results from your email marketing, you have to begin by getting it opened. And that comes down to one thing and one thing only … SUBJECT LINES!

Look, email is the only advertising medium on the planet where the playing field starts out absolutely level. Any and every advertiser has exactly the same real estate. You can be General Motors, Budweiser, Apple or you can be the corner jeweler, and you get exactly the same amount of space with which to compete.

Furthermore, we all deal with our email the same way. First, we scan all the new, unopened emails since our last check for who sent it. We immediately eliminate many or most of them based on the “who” alone without even reading the subject line.

For those who make this first cut, it comes down to the subject lines, and like I said, everybody has exactly the same amount of space to work with.

I believe subject line writing is the single toughest type of advertising writing ever encountered by man.

You have nothing to work with other than your words. You don’t have color, images or anything else to make your appeal stand out from all the others. It’s a sea of black words with nothing visually pulling the eye to one subject line or another.

You must also understand that when people read your subject lines they are not looking for a reason to open

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the email. They are looking to a reason to discard it. So not only are you in danger of telling them too little, you can also tell them too much.

If you fail to convey a compelling benefit in your subject line, into the email trash bin you go.

But if you convey a benefit plus the delivery mechanism for that benefit, the reader might feel that she knows all she needs to know and into the trash bin you go too.

For example, if your subject line reads: “50% Off Diamond Stud Earrings for Valentine’s Day,” you’ve conveyed a clear benefit, but also told them all they need to know about your offer, and they make a snap decision.

“Oh, I don’t think I want to give diamond studs this year.” And into the trash bin you go.

If, on the other hand, you say something like: “You Have to Give a Valentine’s Day Gift Anyway, You Might As Well SAVE 50% While You’re At It … ” you have conveyed the 50 percent off benefit but preserved enough curiosity that the reader has to ask the question, “Hmmm. How do I get that 50 percent off, and on what?”

No other kind of advertising writing--headline writing, in particular--is so thoroughly dependent on the perpetual, delicate balance between delivering benefit and maintaining intrigue. Every single subject line you create has to consider this balance.

We’ll talk about the other elements of email marketing in the future. But for now, remember that subject line writing is a skill, a skill that takes cultivation.

And it’s another reason why it’s no longer good enough to merely “be a jeweler” and let the rest of business take care of itself. You must cultivate the know-how and do-how, the skills of a marketer, if you’re going to not just survive but thrive in the new world of marketing.

Jim Ackerman has teamed up with Shane Decker again for the Ultimate Jewelry Sales & Marketing Boot Camp, coming this August. Find out more at UltimateJewelrySalesBootCamp.com. Ackerman also is providing National Jeweler readers with a free email marketing evaluation and consultation through Feb 28. Send an email request including name and phone number to mail@ascendmarketing.com.

Jim Ackermanis a retail jewelry marketing expert who has spoken at JA New York, JCK and other jewelry trade shows.