New data from GoDaddy suggests that Americans are more likely to open back-to-school emails than email promotions touting Labor Day.
Emails without “Labor Day” in the subject
line generated a 128% higher click-through rate when compared to emails that did reference the holiday, according to a GoDaddy Email Marketing analysis of emails sent from its platform between August
1 and September 30, 2016.
Back-to-school email promotions, on the other hand, were shown to perform well throughout the month of September. Subject lines containing the word
“school” declined throughout August and September according to GoDaddy, although the open rate for school-related emails trended upward during the study.
GoDaddy’s study
suggests that even after the academic year begins, consumers are still taking advantage of school-related promotions. This is confirmed by a recent Persado study that illustrated no significant
difference between the average response rates of back-to-school campaigns between June, July, August, and September.
Email marketers should highlight emotional language when compiling
school-related email promotions, according to Persado’s analysis of 540 back-to-school campaign subject lines used by five different retailers from 2015-2017. While it seems to make no
difference when brands should promote back-to-school, stressing summer’s end using anxiety-type words and phrases can get an audience booking.
Persado’s cognitive platform analyzes
content and associates it to emotion, thus enabling the company to suggest combinations of words, phrases, and images to inspire action.
The internal study suggests that email
subscribers respond more to emotional language than descriptive terminology, like the time of year, promotion or back-to-school product. Emotional language, such as “now’s your
chance,” contributed 64.17% to performance according to Persado, while descriptive language only contributed 19.05%.
Persado also recommends that email marketers keep the buyer in mind,
as directing email campaigns to parents tends to be more effective than marketing to students. An effective tactic is to appeal directly to the purchasing customer with a sense of accomplishment or
reward, and to speak to their desire to feel like they are getting the best value, according to the company.