Email is the new cold call. The quicker organizations accept that, the higher their revenues will climb. 

Email marketing garners higher ROI than any other direct selling method, according to research by the Direct Marketing Association ($45 return for every dollar spent).

But high response rates aren’t a given. They’re the result of targeting the right prospects, writing copy that sells, and — most importantly — choosing subject lines that compel prospects to open the message.

Almost 75% of prospects open email messages within the first 24 hours (if they open them at all). That means the biggest challenge for sales organizations is writing a subject line that grabs prospects’ attention and creates urgency for them to click on the message.

An annual study published by MailerMailer, which analyzed over 3 million emails, also revealed:

• Messages that are personalized with prospects’ names in the body of the copy have higher response rates, while those that include their name in the subject line actually have the lowest response rates (because prospects assume they’re spam).
• Emails with subject lines that are less than 35 characters are opened 3% to 4% more often than those with longer subject lines.
• Open rates are highest on Monday and decrease every day as the week goes on (Friday emails are opened 4% to 6% less than those sent Monday).
• The smaller and more targeted the recipient list, the greater the response rate.
• Copy that’s specifically written for small clusters of prospects (e.g., 250 to 500) based on past buying history (similar title, industry) is the most effective.

A recent MarketingSherpa survey found that 64% of key decision makers now view most of their emails via BlackBerrys (or other mobile devices).

Sales organizations that want to maximize the effectiveness of their
emails can respond to that by:

• Including a button when prospects register on their site, asking if they prefer a “mobile phone” version of your emails or HTML.
• Create a separate e-mail for that audience which uses mobile-friendly text, and
• Include a link to the “HTML” version of the email.

Tags: cold call, Direct Marketing Association, email, email marketing, MailerMailer, MarketingSherpa, revenues, ROI, spam, study, subject line, survey