The biggest challenge when it comes to writing online copy prospects respond to:

Getting them to take the initial plunge and click on the message.

A recent Mailer Mailer study tested over 300,000 keywords and uncovered the 10 most popular terms prospects respond to, as well as why it’s so crucial to get prospects to open your e-mail right away.

More than 75% of prospects determine whether to open or ignore an e-mail within the first 24 hours, 85% in the first 48 hours. So the idea is to write subject lines that grab prospects’ attention immediately, signaling a call to action.

The 10 words proven to do that most effectively (starting with the most effective):

1. News
2. Party
3. Newsletter
4. Free
5. Night
6. Sale
7. Com
8. Update
9. Holiday
10. Week

It’s worth noting that personalizing the e-mail message also makes prospects more likely to read the message (after seeing the first couple lines of the message in the preview pane).

Here’s the twist: E-mail messages that include the prospect’s name in the subject line are actually less likely to be opened than those that only have the prospect’s name in the body of the message itself. Why? Prospects have been conditioned over time to recognize any e-mail that mentions their first name in the subject line as being spam.

But once prospects open an e-mail, strong visual content, bright colors, testimonials, banners and pictures are all proven to draw prospects further into the message. But getting them to take that initial leap of faith and open the e-mail message is the most important half of the battle.

Tags: call to action, copy, e-mail, keywords, online copy, personalizing, spam, study, subject line, terms, testimonials