I recently had the opportunity to attend a great event at which I heard Cynthia Price, Director of Partner Development at Emma, discuss all kinds of statistics related to email marketing. The information she shared was compelling – from ideal font size for an email (14) to the percentage of people who skim (80%) vs. read (20%) your carefully crafted content.
While understanding reader tendencies has huge implications on how we intentionally design emails that appeal to our audience on a subconscious level, one of the most impactful stats she shared was much more explicit.
Saying “Thank You” in the subject line spikes the open rate. In fact, Emma (an email marketing company, mind you) had their high open rate EVER was on an email in which the subject line was simply “Thank You.”
The reason for this is simple: Your audience wants to feel noticed and appreciated. Saying “Thank You” is a brief and genuine way to acknowledge the fact that they have a role – large or small – in the work you’re doing.
Of course, despite the old saying, you can say Thank You enough – overplaying gratitude only serves to diminish it and add to the noise. BUT, done authentically, genuinely, and sparingly, saying “thanks” will get your audience to sit up and take notice.
And, if we’re being honest, they deserve a huge THANK YOU, don’t they?