The Case.
When I joined the SRB copy team, the brands were beginning a shift in strategy toward becoming more “specialty” in appearance and voice. However, our most performant subject lines for promos were very loud and aggressive. This resulted in a lack of clarity around how we should execute promo subject lines – were they too loud, were there too many emojis, were they too quiet and wouldn’t perform, should there be more all caps. Additionally, there hadn’t been a clear approach in messaging strategy or a clear step-change between our various promotional tiers. This meant a lot of spin in late stages.
The Solution.
I built a Promo Subject Line Playbook based on competitor analysis, gained buy-in from Marketing partners, and implemented within our team. The playbook outlined best practices on loudness tactics and created a clear step-change between promo tiers. It also built in more intentionality around whent to use those tactics – for example, reserving all caps for discount or urgency messaging, instead of using on the entire subject line.
The Update.
After about a year, our leadership wanted more specialty in our promo subject lines. I updated the playbook to create messaging strategy across each tier – for example, using more curiosity gap subject lines for category sales, and reserving scarcity messaging for major shopping holidays. I then worked with Marketing partners to validate the messaging strategies via A/B testing in our promos.
The Result.
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Our Promo subject line performance remained the same, even after reducing the amount of emojis and all caps we had been using.
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We validated the type of messaging our customers wanted to hear from us – and turned proven winners into formulas to maximize efficiency.
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Once we had filled the bank with proven winners, we were ready to begin GenAI testing to improve performance without sacrificing brand fidelity.