CATEGORY: email-marketing

Emoji Effect – Symbols in the subject line

Emojis are here to stay. Whether you’re using the most popular emoji in the world (😂) or showing your Valentine some love, they’re ingrained in our lives 😍 and of course have worked their way into our email marketing.

Inboxes are crowded places with limited real estate and emojis are an easy and expressive way to stand out to subscribers. Even as a fully accepted part of modern language (don’t believe me read Are you using the right emoji?) emoji remain a good way to standout in the inbox as their use in email is not commonplace.

Do emoji in subject lines increase performance?

There are many conflicting studies out there, according to Litmus, emojis in subject lines can boost open rates by 10-15 percent, but we believe the subject line experts over at Phrasee have it figured out. In 60% of their tests, they found that emojis do help to drive open rates.

However, it does come with a caveat: As Phrasee says, “it is important to note that what emojis really do is amplify a subject line’s message. Incorporating an emoji will make a bad subject line worse, and a good subject line better.”

The conclusion: Emojis are language amplifiers. An emoji, in itself, won’t make or break a subject line. But what marketer wouldn’t appreciate an additional few percent of opens?

For example

Amplify your great subject lines and make them greater

The most common use we see for emojis is as subject line accents. Emojis can grab a subscriber’s attention and help a subject line pop. When done right, emojis can help emphasise your brand’s message and convey a playful, light-hearted tone that will hopefully encourage engagement.

There are several ways that they can be implemented.

 

What to Consider When Using Emojis in Subject Lines

Before you start using emojis in your subject lines, ask yourself:

1. Am I starting with a good subject line?

2. Does the emoji make sense, is it contextually relevant and will my subscribers understand the content?

3. Does my subject line make sense if the emojis don’t display?

4. Are enough of my subscribers on devices or systems that support emojis? 

5. Am I testing the use of emojis and how they affect my email performance?

 If you answered yes to the above questions, it could be a good time to start testing emojis in subject lines.

 

5 Top tips to get you started 

So if you’re thinking about using symbols in subject lines, take advantage of these five tips:

1. Use symbols in moderation so the novelty doesn’t wear off.

2. Use the symbol within the first 20 characters to be sure recipients see it, whether they’re viewing on a mobile device or desktop.

3. Always test your subject lines across various email clients and mobile devices to be sure the symbols are rendering well.

4. Choose symbols that make sense and complement your brand message; Make sure they are contextually relevant (and double check with some other members of your team to make sure that it is instantly understandable for them too)

5. Test and track email response rates, including open, click-through and conversion rates, to help ensure that using symbols is actually helping (not hurting) your email campaign results.

 

So if the 44^th President of the United States could use emojis in his reports to reach out to millennials then what is stopping you?