Breaking SEO Reseller Tips: The Best and Worst B2B Email Subject Line Keywords

As an SEO reseller, you are constantly searching for new clients. One of the best ways to do it is to conduct email marketing, which can be as complicated as using software to manage lists of tens of thousands or as simple as writing an honest proposal to a prospect. Regardless of which methods you use right now, there's one crucial piece of the process that matters a lot. It's writing the email subject line.

The email subject line is so important to email or list marketers because much of the success of their campaigns depend on it. Maybe you've heard copywriters say that headlines are the most crucial part of the copy because if people don't read it, they won't read the rest of the copy. Such is the case of the email subject line. And frankly, some SEO resellers struggle to get clients not because they are not good marketers or managers. Sometimes, it's just because they use poor subject lines.

Good thing we stumbled upon a recent study on the most effective and least effective email subject lines. According to British marketing agency Adestra, the keywords "breaking" and "alert" perform well for B2B marketing. (We'll focus on B2B since this is the category resellers likes us fall into.) On the other hand, "reports" and "forecast" performed poorly. 

See the full table below:

B2B Email Subject Line Keywords

(Source: The 2013 Adestra Subject Line Analysis report)

Best, Worst B2B Email Subject Lines

As you can see, the word "breaking" registered a high open rate variance vs. the average at 35.4%, leading all keywords in this category. "Alert" also performed well with 32.9% open rate vs. variance. No other listed keywords fared in the 30's although editor (28.7%), weekly (27.5%), and update (26.8%) fared well with late 20's percentages. Broken down by objective, "breaking" was best performing for B2B content emails. For date, it was "weekly" while for subscriptions, the pound sign ranked highest.

On the other side of the fence, the keyword "forecast" registered the worst open rate variance at -34.0%. Take note the variance is against the average, thus the negative open rate percentage. Report was another word in the negative 30's at -30.6%. This week (-18.5%), newsletter (-11.2%), and top stories (-11.2%) also fared poorly.

What the Subject Lines 'Say'

If anything, B2B email recipients have most probably gotten tired at seeing the word "report," which is pretty much one of the most abused terms in the history of Internet marketing. Saturation point, as they say.

On the brighter side, B2B email recipients seem to appreciate timely matters, at least based on the subject lines they open. The top two performing keywords, alert and breaking, convey some sense of immediacy or urgency and business owners seem to appreciate urgent or timely matters. The other top performing word, editor, conveys a sense of authority. Here at SEO reseller tips, this only means business owners want to receive timely messages from people with authority.

What About Free, Deals, Exclusive?

Breaking: Use Breaking for B2B emails.

Common keywords like free, deals, and exclusive were lumped into the B2C category and for a good reason. These are keywords that are indeed targeted at consumers. If you're curious, the word free registered a -10.3% open rate variance vs. average. Deals was surprisingly good at 7.3% while exclusive was even better at 11.3%. The biggest performers in this category were the words review and iPad, which registered 37.1% and 37.3% rates, respectively. On the worst performers, trial (-45%) and discount (-38.8%) were the leaders.

Perhaps this says a lot on how we should treat customers. The most striking was the word review, underscoring the importance of online reviews. Some studies suggest that majority of surveyed consumers now trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. And the iPad? Well who doesn't want one!

How to Use this Survey to Get Clients

First and foremost, if they signed up to your mailing list, use the words "breaking" and "alert". That's obvious because these words generate great open rates. Also, ensure that if you use these keywords, you actually have an "urgent" message for your prospects.

Second and more importantly, remember the word "reviews." Online reviews matter today and the best way to optimize reviews is to use correct search engine optimization methods. We highly recommend Endlessrise SEO Reseller Programs for you to use. They have basic, advanced, and custom packages so you can choose which ones suit your clients best.

Another reason why we recommend these guys is because they are experts in Online Reputation Management. Remember reviews? You want positive reviews but you also want negative reviews to sink down on search results. Endlessrise are experts at SEO so they can help you push down negative reviews using positive reviews, articles and blog posts, videos, and other relevant types of content.

Finally, if you are not using list marketing but have clients who do, share this report to them. A good SEO reseller isn't just a service provider to business owners; he is also a partner who is after the welfare of his client. You may think it's a very small thing to do, but "sharing timely information from authoritative sources" to your clients is one great way of building rapport and nurturing them for the long haul.