Branding in email subject lines increases open rates 32%-60%

[mandy]

Branding in an e-mail subject line is critical to campaign success – in fact, it’s worth an open rate that’s 32% to 60% higher than when the e-mail doesn’t have such branding...

... lifestyle photography, that favorite tool of ad agency creative directors, does pay off in higher e-mail click rates, but only for b2c marketers. The average click rate for b2c e-mails with lifestyle photography was 6.3% and 5.4% without it, but for b2b e-mails, the click rate for those that included lifestyle photography, 4.1%, was lower than for e-mails that didn’t include it, 5.3%.

The analysis also revealed a few surprises. While the postcard design remains a favorite of b2c e-mail marketers, it doesn’t produce the highest click rates for those marketers. What does is the newsletter format, which produced average click rate of 7.1% for b2c marketers, versus 6.2% for e-mails using the postcard layout. The study’s conclusion: b2c marketers should take a serious look at newsletter-style copy and layouts...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=20219