eMarketer: 54% of Retailer still do not test email subject line

Personally, I am now getting about 2 emails a week from Amazon, more than one per week from Costco and Target. This is probably two to three times the normal frequency, it's probably the combination or final holiday push and desperation during tough economic condition. They are definitely trying harder, unfortunately, I don't think many of them are hitting the sweet spots yet, at least for me. What about for you?

Obviously, the sender's FROM address (both email and display name parts) is crucial in determining the open and response rates. Recipients needs to trust and feel they have a relationship to even consider opening the email.

After that, the subject line is the key. Much more important than time of day or day of week in most of the emails I have tried. Changing a couple of key words can have huge impact on open rate AND response rate. Subject lines set the expectation of what's inside the email. You can have a very provocative subject line to get people open the email, but if people feel they are cheated or if the email did not meet people's expectation, the click-to-open ratio could be much worse. This would hurt the long term relationship with the user.

Different subject lines can have huge swing in different age groups and achieve plus/minus 50% in overall response. Is it too much work for 54% of the retailers to do?

Sources:
eMarketer: E-Mail Marketers Get in the Spirit (11/26/2008)