Who's the Champion of the Marketer Vs. Copywriter Subject Line Writing Cage Match?

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Who produces the best email subject lines? Analytical or creative types?  Copyblogger and MarketingExperiments attempted to answer this question with a contest inviting blog readers to submit their subject lines for an email promoting MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014. You can see the email in this MarketingExperiments Blog post.

Of the more than 600 submissions, judges from Copyblogger selected five subject lines and judges from MarketingExperiments selected five subject lines to participate in a split test. The top prize – a free ticket to Email Summit 2014, February 17 through 20, in Las Vegas, including a two-night stay at the Aria Resort & Casino – was given to the writer of the subject line which produced the highest number of unique clickthroughs.

After two weeks of testing, this subject line emerged on top:

(Open BEFORE Christmas) Email Summit 2014: discount ends Jan 9th

"The nine other subject lines we tested produced between 12% and 67% fewer clickthroughs," said Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS. "This experiment shows the power of split testing. Had we not tested and just went with our gut, we would have received much less engagement with our email marketing."

The winner was Ali Luke, reader of Copyblogger and writer at Aliventures, editor of DailyBlogTips and author of Publishing E-Books For Dummies (Wiley, 2012).

"I'm absolutely thrilled and pretty stunned to have won the Copyblogger/MarketingExperiments competition," Luke said. "I'm no email marketing expert though I hope Email Summit will change that, but clearly some good advice has sunk in during my years of reading Copyblogger. When coming up with my subject line, I thought about what I'd like to see in my inbox – a bit of humor with a clear, straightforward message."

"The benefits of testing extend well beyond prizes and recognition to customer intelligence and even revenue increases," Burstein said. "We've split tested thousands of subject lines for ourselves and our Research Partners, we've interviewed others who have done the same for their organizations, and have witnessed remarkable results. Consider the Obama for America campaign – its email split testing produced $500 million in additional online donations."

"It's these kinds of outcomes that encouraged us to use this contest to produce content to teach the audience and help them improve their own split testing," he continued.

You can read more information about this contest and the results of the experiment here: "Email Marketing: What do customers value most about your product? [Subject line contest winners announced]."

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014 will provide an opportunity for marketers to join 800 of their peers in growing their knowledge of email marketing and testing through case studies, keynotes and roundtable discussions based on real-world research, not theory. Find out more here: MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014.

About MarketingSherpa (follow us @marketingsherpa or visit www.marketingsherpa.com)

MarketingSherpa publishes case studies, Benchmark Reports, exclusive research, how-to instructional materials and six content-specific newsletters for more than 237,000 content, email, inbound marketing, search, B2B and consumer marketing professionals each week. In its tenth year, the marketing research publisher has been praised by The Economist, Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge and Entrepreneur.com. Along with MarketingExperiments and InTouch, MarketingSherpa is part of the MECLABS Group, which offers marketers practical research data and information, professional training and networking summits.

About MarketingExperiments (follow us @mktgexperiments or visit www.marketingexperiments.com)

MarketingExperiments was the first Internet-based research lab to conduct experiments in optimizing marketing and sales processes. Their research team has developed the world's largest collection of optimization-related experiments and case studies, which is distributed free via the MarketingExperiments Journal and www.marketingexperiments.com. The MarketingExperiments Blog complements this research with additional news, insights, analysis and interviews. It also provides another venue to exchange ideas with marketing, optimization and sales professionals.

About MECLABS (visit www.meclabs.com)

A science lab with a consultancy, MECLABS conducts rigorous experiments in the new science of optimization and applies discoveries to help businesses optimize sales and marketing financial performance. More than a decade of work spans 1,300-plus experiments including one billion emails and 10,000 landing pages. MECLABS has two primary research groups:  MarketingExperiments conducts experiments to optimize the sales and marketing process, and MarketingSherpa conducts and publishes exclusive case studies, surveys and data analysis, which reveal what works in marketing. MECLABS has six applied research groups: Strategy, Leads, Conversion, Agency, Technology and Training. For more information, visit meclabs.com or call 1-800-517-5531.

SOURCE MarketingSherpa