Personalization in e-mail marketing efforts is key. Though this is logical, it might behoove marketers to remind themselves of this fact and to check to see if their e-mails appear too shady for the typical consumer’s tastes.
A recent study conducted by MailerMailer indicates that e-mail recipients are much more likely to open a message in their inbox if they trust the information contained in the “Subject” and “From” lines.
During the first half of 2007, worldwide e-mail marketing open rates were 18.00% when only the subject line was personalized, while the click rates were 5.02%. When only the message was personalized, open rates were 16.56%, while click rates were 3.15%. When nothing was personalized, open rates were 15.86% and click rates were 2.94%.
“The e-mail’s 'from' and 'subject' lines become key elements that help recipients quickly decide whether the e-mail is spam,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.
Another study conducted by the E-Mail Sender and Provider Coalition and Ipsos published in March 2007 showed that 73% of the 2,252 respondents used the information in the “From” line to determine whether or not the e-mail was spam without opening the message. Sixty-nine percent used the information in the “Subject” line to come to this conclusion.
MailerMailer also found that open rates have been on the decline since 2004, thanks in large part to the disabling of automatic image downloading that many e-mail services have implemented. Nevertheless, click rates have remained stable.
Source:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005550
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