Hi Paul, Thanks a mill for that! Must now read all that carefully again as it is worthy of such! Regards, Tony. ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Traynor To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 8:11 AM Subject: [vip_students] Re: Messages in Subject Bar Hi Tony, Good point about the amount of characters in a subject line. Read the below article I took from the web which indicates why a subject line displaying correctly is important and also gives you a quick rundown of the amount of characters you can type including spaces into popular email clients. It's proven that the FROM field of your emails is the MOST important factor in getting your messages opened. But after that, it's surely the subject line. Many ezine (email newsletter) publishers seem to consider their subject lines as afterthoughts, which is a bad idea. Example: Suppose you get an e-mail with the subject line, "Get Rid of Your Debt Today." I don't know about you, but my right pinkie is already poised over the delete key! However, this could be an e-zine I've subscribed to that just isn't announcing itself properly. Now, what if the subject line instead read: "[Frank's Financial Tips] Get Rid of Your Debt Today" See the difference? By listing the title of your e-zine, it reinforces your brand, it allows your readers to filter your e-zine into a separate folder in their e-mail inbox, and most important, it lets your recipient knows your message is NOT spam. Now I do see some e-zines that ONLY list the e-zine name. For the example above it could just say, "Frank's Financial Tips." That's okay, but it doesn't tell me what's in the issue or why I should open it. Remember you're competing with dozens of other e-mail subject lines in your readers' inboxes, so give them a reason to open yours. Studies show that also using the reader's NAME in the subject line can dramatically increase open rates, but I reserve this tactic for special promotions I send out that are time-sensitive and I want great response to (such as announcing an upcoming teleseminar). Example: "Jennifer, join me next Tuesday?" This helps get the reader's attention and builds curiosity so she opens it right away. If you want to use this tactic, you'll need a list service that supports "personalization." No matter what subject line you write, keep it short and sweet, because many e-mail programs cut off long subject lines. Here are the maximum subject line lengths (including spaces) in some popular e-mail programs: AOL: 52 characters Hotmail: 45 characters Outlook Express: 64 characters Yahoo: 80 characters Don't go - y counting spaces, but just keep in mind that shorter is - ter. (This sentence here contains 60 characters, including spaces.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter We are a community of 5.6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 5365 of my spam emails to date. The Professional version does not have this message ******************************************************************** NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to delete it and any attachments from your system. NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However, it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NCBI ********************************************************************