Email marketing: Blank subject line?

[cssoh]

I launched a monthly e-newsletter early this year and have just sent out (opt-in) the second issue. The email marketing programme that I use generates reports on deliverability, open/click-through rates, etc. The second issue apparently was delivered to more subscrbers than the first, ie. didn't trigger the spam filters as much this time.

Now I know there are lots of variables involved here, and I have been told that the if I left the subject line blank I would have a higher success rate in my email marketing efforts. Is this true?

I would also appreciate your comments on this topic.

[Joyous]

If an e-mail were to hit my inbox without a subject line I would delete it without even reading it as I'd assume it's spam.

Regards

Joy

[trainershack]

or a virus

[Snorkerz]

same here.

[tomdenancy]

I think a well-written short and sweet, descriptive subject line would be your best bet.

[peterjhale]

yep - the idea behind the subject line is *just* to get people to open the email.,

Then your headline in the email to get attention -- then off you go -- like any good direct mail piece

[guerrilla]

you may be experiencing a higher volume of email users that have had the recent update for outlook express. This update blocks images from loading which is the way that email delivery trackers work. They may be reading your email, just not letting the images load so you dont know if they have read them or not.

[guerrilla]

i misready yur post, didnt realise you were getting MORE hits. I have found that different product need differently composed email for instace selling a computer would be

"pentium 4 only £299"

Anyone interested in buying it will click on it and the picture and phone number would load. Different services would require different phrasing but keeping it short and simple usually does best in my experience

[cssoh]

Thank you all for your comments.

Guerilla, you provided a good insight into how email trackers work, though. So what happens when the email is just HTML with no images? It can't be tracked, then, is that right?

[guerrilla]

There are 2 ways to my knowledge to track that an email has been received and read.

1) Use a read receipt in outlook - this wont work in webmail or the majority of other email clients and they always have the option to select "no" to sending receipt unless their systems admin has made it so they have to send it.

2) Link to a graphic on your server from an HTML email. When that image on the server is accessed you know that someone from that IP address is reading your email. Count the amount of unique IP hits and you get a pretty good idea how many people are reading the email. You can even include a dynamic string to display the graphic like:

<img src="myserver.com/imagescript.cgi?puntersemail@gotsold.com">

You would then configure your "imagescript.cgi" to serve the graphic and record that "puntersemail@gotsold.com" is a valid address and has read the email. You will need to generate that image link dynamically for each email you send which is possible i beleive in quite a few of the main massmailing softwares out there.