Emoji are a great and fun way to express yourself. These colorful symbols are everywhere, and many companies include them in their email campaigns. It is a common practice, especially among e-commerce companies, to add emoji to the subject line of their emails. This allows them to stand out from their competition and grab the attention of their customers. Although emoji can increase your email open rate, studies have shown that they can negatively affect your brand if used incorrectly…
There are a few reasons you might want to use emoji in your email campaigns.
Here are the main reasons why adding emoji to the subject of your email might seem like a good idea.
- Stand out in a crowded inbox : It is estimated that a French person receives an average of 39 emails per day. That’s why it can be difficult to get the attention of your followers. By using emoji, you can differentiate yourself in emoji’s inbox and grab their attention more easily;
- Express feelings: Your business needs to build an emotional connection with its customers, and unfortunately words can’t always convey emotion. Emoji are more effective in this regard;
- get location The subject of an email is very important and you want it to be as effective as possible in grabbing the attention of your customers. However, you are limited in terms of space and emoji allow you to say many things in one character;
- raise opening rates : With emoji, you can expect high open rates for your email campaigns.
The problem of emoji in email marketing
While emoji help you achieve higher open rates in your email campaigns, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee higher conversion rates and better performance. Indeed, recent studies have shown that using emoji in the subject line of your email can harm your brand as well.
In an effort to gauge email users’ attitudes toward the subject lines of emails containing emoji, research expert Nielsen found that emoji create a negative feeling for your brand in your customers. Here’s how he came to this conclusion:
Nielsen presented study participants with 13 actual marketing emails that included emoji in their subject line. Participants were then asked to describe the email by selecting three words from a list of response words.
Surprisingly, the words chosen most often were “boring” and “dull”. These results confirmed that adding emoji to the subject line of an email can create negative sentiment among your customers.
Additionally, emails without emoji were also rated higher in terms of credibility and value than emails with emoji. Emails containing emoji can be viewed as unprofessional and in bad taste.
Furthermore, Nielsen’s study is not the only one to have obtained such results. Search Engine Journal has done similar research, and the results are in the same direction. This latest study also showed that emoji in your email campaigns increase unsubscribe rates.
Never use emoji in your email again?
Emoji is definitely not something you should add to every email you send to your followers. They can significantly affect the performance of your business. However, that doesn’t mean you should never use them. For example, you can wish your customers a Merry Christmas or New Year by sending them a celebratory emoji. You just need to make sure that you do not overuse them, only when their use is relevant, and do not increase the open rate of your emails.
Tips for improving the open rates of your emailing campaigns without emoji
If your email campaigns suffer from low open rates, here are some tips for getting better results without using emoji:
- split your list If you don’t segment your list, your email campaigns aren’t fully optimized, so it’s not surprising to have low open rates. It will be difficult for you to deliver relevant content if you don’t segment your customers. To get high open rates, you need to send the right message to the right people;
- refresh your list : It is a good practice to remove inactive clients from time to time. An inactive subscriber can be anyone who hasn’t opened or clicked through to your email campaigns in the past six months or more. However, before doing that, try setting up a campaign to reconnect them;
- Personalize the subject of your email with the name of the reader Personalizing the subject line of your email has many great benefits, including increased open and click-through rates;
- Use between 6 and 10 words in the subject line of your email : If the subject is too long, it will be truncated, and your reader will not know what the email is about and may ignore it;
- take the right time : Several studies show that weekday mornings are the best time to send emails to your customers;
- share great content : If you share useful content, your customers will be more likely to open your emails in the future. This is a surefire way to retain your audience.
Whether you run a blog or an e-commerce site, the above steps can help you achieve higher open rates without resorting to emoji or hurting your brand. Emoji are fun and friendly, but they are best suited for conversations outside of business. It may be a good idea to use them from time to time, but they are certainly not a tool you can rely on for great results in your email campaigns.