What if one easy 30 second hack could help your email open rates go up?
It could… depending on your audience… if you can copy and paste!
You’ve probably seen this one used but might not have figured out how to use it yourself, yet. It’s super easy.
Here it is: Try adding emojis to some of your email subject lines.
According to a few studies over the last couple of years:
- 56% of brands who added emoji to their subject lines saw a higher unique open rate. (Source: Experian)
- One A/B split test showed emoji resulted in higher unique open (+3.29%), unique click (+6.28%), and click-through (+18.93%) rates. (Source: Swiftpage)
- Anecdotally (so don’t take this as scientific fact) I’m seeing a boost in open rates and hearing the same thing from friends and colleagues – most see a 2 – 5% higher open rate when they split test with emojis.
Three Quick Tips…
- Use them to convey emotion and save space. A tiny icon might not be worth 1,000 words, but it can help you keep your subject line shorter, especially for your mobile email viewers.
- Always test your subject lines. Especially if you decide to get creative and use the fancier, cartoon style or animated emoji. The ASCII emoji below are the most reliable and likely to work across browsers/email clients, but some also allow other emoji styles.
- Consider your audience. Emojis work better with certain crowds, and for certain businesses/brands. You know your audience best. But it may be worth a quick test or two.
An Emoji “Cheatsheet” to Copy & Paste From
Want more? Wanna get a little fancier, more colorful, and try something cool? Check out this link: http://fsymbols.com/
And, you might also try emojis in your social media posts. Don’t go crazy with 15 in one post, but a study by Zazzle found that using emoji resulted in 33% more shares, 33% more comments and 57% more likes!
Have you tried emojis in your subject lines yet? Did it help or hurt your open rates?
How do emojis in subject lines make you feel personally?
Leave a comment and let’s discuss!
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Hi Michelle,
I found your blog post on Tribber and had to come by to read it. I’ve been looking for ways to increase my open rate so this is perfect timing. I’m going to test out the emoji’s. I never thought about using that one before – finger’s crossed it works.
Thanks for sharing these tips with us. Passing this along. Have a great day and week. :)
Cori
Hey Cori, thanks for stopping by!
Definitely test it out, and I’d love to hear the results.
I found this to be true. When I add a checkmark or arrow to emails, they are opened by more subscribers.
I’m not sure how to add them in Aweber, but I’ll find out as I know they work. A little smiley goes a long way.
You might try the ascii versions above vs. the fancier color ones, if you haven’t yet. These work in InfusionSoft where the colorful ones don’t (yet). So might be the same for AWeber.
Thanks, I’ll try it. ? Well, I just copy and pasted this emoji so going to test it in this week’s email.
Let me know how it goes. Curious to see what works for you.
I’d love to use the more colorful ones but so far in testing those aren’t working well for me.
Just shows the importance of always testing.
I am clearly of an older generation, Michelle! And, while many of my clients are of yours (and younger, still), I feel i must be true to my self-image and my corporate mission and vision.
So, we pass on emoji, we pass on text (sticking to phones, eMail, and snail mail)- but still try to excite, incite, and entice.
Brand absolutely matters.
One thing I did find interesting was the ideas about gender/age and emojis here: https://blog.crazyegg.com/2015/08/14/emojis-in-email/
There are some industries and niches which I would think emoji could have the opposite effect… best to know your audience and go from there. :)
I think they add a fun touch unless there are too many in one place. I haven’t started using them in headings and subject lines yet, but I might. My open rate was boosted by sending to a segment of my list that excluded fakes.
They can definitely be over-used. 100% agree.
That’s interesting about the fakes – how are you filtering out that segment?
This is really helpful. I’m sharing it now, thank you.
Hi Alice, thanks for commenting and sharing.
Tricks of the trade, huh Michelle? :) I don’t focus much on a newsletter. I’m kind of old school, I guess. However, it fascinates me to think that by adding an emoticon to a newsletter, more would open it. I wonder if it depends on age bracket or niche?
I love learning new things. Thanks for sharing this!
B
It would definitely vary by age and niche.
Are you building an email list? If not, today’s a great day to start one. ;) Doesn’t require an official newsletter, just gives you a great way to stay in touch with people and continue to be of service to them. :)
Never thought about adding emojis to the subject line, but seems to work. Will definitely try it out. Thanks for your tips!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting – would love to hear your results after you test it out.
Hey Michelle,
Now-a-days, emojis really show effective result when we add to the subject lines. It has very dense benefit so we need to adopt in our primary strategies because we know very well people attract more with images and symbols than simple content. Today, in every social network platforms we can easily find this feature – it has absolutely great impact on results. Eventually, thanks for sharing your worthy tips with us.
With best wishes,
Amar kumar
Indeed informative tips, I’m kinda noob in email marketing stuff and I think I learned some great hacks from this post.
thanks
I like this article very much since it is helpful and provides information. Thank you so much.
I was actually considering doing this but I always thought it didn’t look professional. I have even had people tell me this. I am in the age range where they are still heavily used and I think while my audience is of all ages, most will not be bothered by it. I am going to give it a try and see how well my e-mails do! Thanks for the trip on this. Not many people talk about this kind of thing.