Because You Rock 🔶 Open Pronto
1/25/18
Yes, that is an email subject line that Audience Rewards used recently to promote one of our participating shows. And no, we haven’t lost our minds. In fact, we’re going beyond our own brain power and using machine learning to optimize email opens and clicks—and in turn, maximize ticket sales. After all, in order to build loyalty among customers, the very first step is getting them to hear what we have to say.
Until last year our marketing experts have relied on descriptive, literal subject lines. We’ve used language to reflect the brand sensibility of Audience Rewards and the featured show, and to provide information about the contents of the email inside. The assumption is that recipients can use this information to decide whether to open the message. Think along the lines of: “First access to show XYZ starring ABC celebrity.”
In testing though, informative subject lines are consistently outperformed by language that might surprise you, like catchphrases, emojis, and exclamations. The new subject lines we’re testing are generated by a system called Persado (which you may have heard about at the Shubert Summit last fall).
Persado analyzes millions of subject line tests across hundreds of clients, parses open and click data, and recommends language and symbols to drive engagement.
Take this data-generated subject line:
(1) Important message📍 A special presale offer is waiting
It does not include the show title, stars, or much detail at all. And yet, this had a 23% higher open rate than our human-generated version, which included all of the above. Shubert/Telecharge has reported similar increases in open rates with Persado-generated subject lines.
And more opens mean more clicks and more sales. Overall, we’re estimating that each additional 10,000 opens translates to an approximately 12% increase in the sales conversion rate. And that should make all of us ☺.
Learn more about Audience Rewards at www.AudienceRewards.com.
Until last year our marketing experts have relied on descriptive, literal subject lines. We’ve used language to reflect the brand sensibility of Audience Rewards and the featured show, and to provide information about the contents of the email inside. The assumption is that recipients can use this information to decide whether to open the message. Think along the lines of: “First access to show XYZ starring ABC celebrity.”
In testing though, informative subject lines are consistently outperformed by language that might surprise you, like catchphrases, emojis, and exclamations. The new subject lines we’re testing are generated by a system called Persado (which you may have heard about at the Shubert Summit last fall).
Persado analyzes millions of subject line tests across hundreds of clients, parses open and click data, and recommends language and symbols to drive engagement.
Take this data-generated subject line:
(1) Important message📍 A special presale offer is waiting
It does not include the show title, stars, or much detail at all. And yet, this had a 23% higher open rate than our human-generated version, which included all of the above. Shubert/Telecharge has reported similar increases in open rates with Persado-generated subject lines.
And more opens mean more clicks and more sales. Overall, we’re estimating that each additional 10,000 opens translates to an approximately 12% increase in the sales conversion rate. And that should make all of us ☺.
Learn more about Audience Rewards at www.AudienceRewards.com.
Originally published in Broadway Briefing.