How to Compose a Catchy Subject Line for Christmas Emails
2018 is right around the corner. The holiday season is a great time for auto dealers to launch a big email campaign. As an important part of the inbound marketing, such campaigns are intended to attract customer attention by their look and retain it by their content. The tricky part is if you fail the first phase, all efforts, creativity and costs you contributed into the second one simply won’t matter. In other words, if the subject line of your commercial emails doesn’t catch readers attention from the first word, they probably won’t open the email at all. The cute little cars, snowflakes and Santa that your designers have been working on, are going to remain unseen if the opening line of your message doesn’t arouse people’s interest.
We at Autoxloo want to hold your hand and walk you through some tips on how to create good, catchy and effective subject lines for your auto dealer email marketing campaign. Also, we will provide you with some examples of well-written subject-lines.
1. Length
Readers should be able to grasp the gist of your offer within 6 seconds – such amount of time is being paid to unfamiliar emails according to recent surveys.
Another reason why length matters is the number of emails being opened on mobile devices – it is truly impressive. More than 27 billion email opens between May 2016 and April 2017 were analyzed and 55% of them were opened on mobile. Typically, mobiles display fewer characters of a subject line than a desktop. Considering the multiplicity of the portable devices on the market and the mobile clients being used, there is no one-size-fits-all subject line length for every device. Take a look at the number of characters depending on email client/OS:
- Outlook 2010 compact – 73 characters
- Thunderbird – 66 characters
- Gmail – 70 characters
- Yahoo mail – 46 characters
- Android(800 x 480px)portrait – 30 characters
- iPhone portrait – 41 characters
- iPhone landscape – 64 characters
- Windows Phone landscape – 61 characters
As you can see, the subject line length is not a constant. The best way to define the optimal length for your dealership mailer subject line is to perform an analysis to understand which devices and clients your target audience uses. If you don’t have such date, we recommend shortening to less than 50 characters to avoid cropping your text. Put away long narrations and go straight to the point.
2. Grabber
Every marketer knows that to be spotted you need to stand out. Your designer team (if you don’t have one, Autoxloo will be pleased to help you) will take care of the Christmas decoration. Every big holiday is a chance to grab visitors’ attention by sprucing up the appearance of your emails. However, your subject lines should contain grabbers as well, because they are the first thing customers will see.
You can ask a question (whether close-ended or open-ended), make a comparison or an exaggeration, use allusion, emphasize the benefit, create a sense of urgency or limitation, provide a numbered list or share a how-to.
3. Strong words
Compare “This car is okay.” and “This car is mind-blowing!” Which one would you choose? The power of strong words is amazing, use it in your auto dealer email marketing campaign for holidays. Besides, you do have mind-blowing cars there, don’t you?
4. Structure
Recent surveys also claim that readers tend to pay attention to the first and last 3 words of the email subject. Take it into consideration when writing a subject line. Avoid using “weak” words at the beginning and at the end of it.
Now it’s time for the examples we promised you.
- She will not forget this Christmas
Length: 35 characters
Grabber type: benefit
Strong words: “will not forget”, “Christmas”
- Last Christmas you sold us your car
Length: 36 characters
Grabber type: allusion to a song
Strong words: “Christmas”
- You are not Santa, get yourself a car instead of sleigh
Length: 56 characters
Grabber type: exaggeration
Strong words: “Santa”
- Still relying on deer? Buy a truck
Length: 35 characters
Grabber type: question, exaggeration
Strong words: “Still relying on?”
- Hurry, take advantage of X dealership Christmas offer
Length: 54 characters
Grabber type: urgency, limited time
Strong words: “Hurry”, “Christmas offer”
Stick to these rules, be creative and passionate, and your Christmas auto dealer email marketing campaign will succeed. Autoxloo wishes you reduce your inventory this holiday season and gain new customers. Our team of developers, QAs, designers and marketers is ready to help you improve your sales performance and ROI in 2018. Contact us today and let’s start a successful year together.
