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One minute marketer: study shows 'free' works in e-mail.

The E-Tactics Letter • Oct 29, 2003 •

An Oct 13th article of DirectNewsline quoted e-PostDirect's new findings. I thought you'd find them interesting:

Doing an e-mail campaign? Putting the word "free" along with the offer in a subject line is a definite plus, no matter what you've heard.

In fact, e-Post Direct discovered that in a six-week e-mail test it ran recently. "The free-offer subject line lifted response rates by 26%," said Michelle Feit, president of the e-mail marketing list company.

The subject line, "Free direct mail encyclopedia" beat out the benefit subject line, which said, "Boost sales, increase profits and expand marketplace awareness."

E-Post Direct conducted the test earlier this year, e-mailing out some 150,000 pitches in all. Recipients were a VNU business audience.

"We saw that by testing all these different segments and learning what is the best subject line, day to mail and copy and design to use, we could actually lift our results by 180%," Feit said. "Those variables have a real effect on the success of a campaign."


COPYRIGHT 2003 Sarah Stambler's Marketing with Technology News Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2003, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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