The Worst Subject Lines are Educational, It Seems…

by DigitalMailer

by. Jimmy Marks

I saw this article from MarketingProfs that showed a large matrix of best and worst words in subject lines.  Interesting stuff, considering that “gift”, “win”, and “exclusive” aren’t total deal-breakers anymore. These used to be words you couldn’t even dream of using in an email campaign.

What puzzled me more than the words I thought were going to be SPAM keywords? The words that caused the fewest opens and clicks. Some of the under-performers from the list:

  • “Learn”
  • “Report”
  • “Webinar”
  • “Forecast”
  • “Report”
  • “Trial”

See any pattern? These are all words that performed significantly worse than the overall average of the email subject lines surveyed. And they all have something to do with education – learning, reports, webinars, forecasts, etc. Do people really hate the idea of being educated that much?

It probably doesn’t help that many people expect “educational materials” to be hard-sells. What really gets people going, it seems, is an actual offer – not disguised, not ashamed, just straight-up offers and discounts. “Free Delivery” has an open rate that’s 50% higher than the average. “Sale” has a 23% higher open rate and a 60% higher click-through rate.

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