When it comes to marketing subscription content, email is continuing to be the champion of conversions, especially email newsletters. Which is why I wanted to present you with five ways to increase the ROI on your email newsletters. The first four deal with increasing open rates through better subject lines (courtesy of the Neilsen Norman Group) and the last one demonstrates why display ads can be a powerful revenue generator in email newsletters.

1. Include content in your subject line. This may seem obvious, but some content creators are creating subject lines like “April 28th eNewsletter). With all email software dating incoming messages, there’s no need for this. Tell them what’s in this week’s newsletter, instead.
2. Say something compelling in the first 40 characters. Many email programs limit the number of characters that appear in the subject line, so it’s good to start with the good stuff. Neilsen recommends limiting your subject line to just 40 characters, but that may be overkill, as some evidence has shown that longer subject lines, especially for newsletters that include multiple headlines, can increase open rates.
3. Don’t repeat sender information in the subject line. Duh. Your sender name already tells them where the email is coming from — the subject line needs to tell them why to open it!
4. Don’t use the recipient’s name in the subject line. This is a little counterintuitive. Personalization, like segmentation, can help improve click-through rates. But a promotional email with a subscriber’s name in the subject line is an automatic tell to consumers that the personalization has been automated. Thus, you’ve basically lost the effect of personalization and dropped your open rate.
5. Include ads in your email newsletter. At the ABM conference in Phoenix, Todd Krizelman of MediaRadar mentioned that 19,915 B2B advertisers bought ad space in email newsletters in the past year. In addition, 30% of emails with ads have only one, but 17% have more than five ads, with a decent spread at the intervals in between. Yet, many paid content publications don’t think to include an ad in their newsletter. While your newsletter may be your best marketing bet for converting prospects to subscribers, it can also make you money on its own through appropriate and respectful advertising.

Do you have any tips for increasing your email ROI? Let us know by commenting below.