Top newsletter subject lines

MarketingSherpa have analysed subject lines from the past 12 months pulling out the top 10 and bottom 10 subject lines based on both clickthroughs and click-to-open ratio. The four biggest takeways they found are:

1. Show value in the first two words - convey the intended benefit "Top 12,” “Simple Email,” “6 Actions” and “Your Copy”. These all inform the user their *getting an actionable item*.
2. Find the right ‘trigger words’ - a name, the use of numbers, the number of characters in the subject line (30-40 characters), the use of an industry phrase, or the appearance of an unusual word.
3. Watch the hard sell - asking subscribers to do something rather than showing value reduces opens and CTRs. Provide value in the subject line and promote in the email content.
4. Hot brands work across sectors - Getting a hot brand (e.g. Facebook) into that crucial two-word window can turn a good email performance into a better one.

See the full article here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30938&pop=no

Search-based Keyword Tool

The new Google Search-based Keyword Tool helps you get a better sense of what your potential customers are searching for and which keywords you should advertise on. It provides keyword ideas:

• Based on actual Google search queries


• Matched to specific pages of your website with your ad and search share


• New to your Adwords account (typically excluding keywords matching those already in your account)

Helping you identify additional advertising opportunities that aren't currently being used in your AdWords ad campaigns.



The Search-based Keyword Tool is now available to all advertisers in the US and UK. Try it out at http://www.google.com/sktool

The right time of the day to send emails

MarketingExperiments tested emails sends at diffetrent times of the day and found:

- Emails sent before 9 a.m. dramatically lift clickthrough rates.
- Early-bird execs on the East Coast respond to email before their workday begins.
- Time-zone segments are worth testing for marketers with international lists.

Shift from Offline and Brand to Online and Direct Tactics during economic downturn

In today's economic climate, marketers need to accurately predict, measure and optimize tactical results pushing the industry toward direct and online answers.

According to MarketingSherpa: "only 12% of marketers predict increases to traditional budgets compared to 31% who expect online increases. More importantly, perhaps, this roughly balances out those predicting reductions. There’s more good news for online marketing, as larger companies are somewhat more likely than the average to plan increases as budget is reallocated from more expensive offline efforts".