A tremendous amount of time and energy is spent trying to uncover the secrets of the Google search ranking algorithm.   Google occasionally will provide some nuggets of information and insights, but the advice I hear most constantly from Google is to offer content that people value and a website that is easy to use.  Google maintains that if we do, other sites will link to us, people will gravitate to our site, and Google will reward us with high rankings and all will be good.  Now, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to do things like optimize our website for particular keywords and try to increase the number of inbound links, but it does remind us to not forget about the importance of the content and the overall experience.

That same advice should be applied to email marketing.  We spend countless hours, rightfully so, thinking about issues like the length of subject lines, trying to improve deliverabilty to the inbox, and what time and date are best to send our campaigns.  However, sometimes we forget about the content and the communication of our offer:  is what what we present compelling, are we giving the subscriber something of value, are we clear about how the product, content, or service that we provide can help the consumer, etc. 

If I only provide something of value in one of the first ten emails that I send to a subscriber, I have lost that consumer and tweaking a subject line or changing the time of day that I send the email won’t have any significant impact.  Home Depot is  much more successful with me when they can provide ideas on how to complete projects around my house (buying products at there store) than when they just send me a list of everything that is on sale that week.

So, as we are reading the latest report on open rates and length of subject lines (hopefully in this blog), let’s take Google’s advice and remember to continually give equal consideration to the content and making sure we are providing something of value to our subscribers.  Oh, and by the way, if anyone does crack the Google search algorithm, please let me know.