Three words your email subject lines should not contain

Several words such as free, sex and “dear friend” are already widely known to be avoided if you are to stand a chance of your email being opened. New analysis from MailChimp has identified three more to steer clear of.

by Helen Leggatt

Over 200 million emails were analyzed as part of a study, by MailChimp, of its customers’ email campaigns. The email marketing firm discovered that recipients treated new emails as “guilty until proven innocent” and that the content of the subject line plays a big part in whether it is opened or ignored

Three more words have been identified, as follows:

Help – most readers did not respond to this word because, they speculate, of its association with scams, for instance the Nigerian emails.

Reminder – it would appear this term is too vague and that recipients prefer to be given a more specific subject line that gives a hint as to what it contains.

% off – this overtly commercial phrase is perceived by many as the lead-in to a sleazy offer.

SubscriberMail previously identified many other words that they recommend should be avoided.