A client's name in the subject line earns your email a closer read, so write a body that deserves it
A 2018 study in Marketing Science found that adding the recipient's name to an email's subject line raised opens and sales leads, and the authors' analysis suggests the name led people to read the rest of the message with more effort. My view is that this puts the weight of a past-client email on its body, since the name mainly buys you a closer read.
Key points
- In a 2018 Marketing Science field experiment, adding the recipient's name to an email's subject line raised the probability of it being opened from 9.05% to 10.80%, with sales leads rising from 0.39% to 0.51%.
- The authors' analysis suggests a name works by increasing the effort people put into processing the rest of the message, even though the name itself tells the reader nothing new.
- My reading for agents is that a name in the subject line earns a closer read, so the body of a past-client email should hold something specific to that client.
A name in the subject line lifted opens and sales leads in a large field experiment
In Personalization in Email Marketing: The Role of Noninformative Advertising Content, published in Marketing Science in 2018, Navdeep Sahni, Christian Wheeler and Pradeep Chintagunta worked with three companies selling a diverse set of products. They ran randomized field experiments in which experimentally tailored email ads went to millions of people, and they found consistently that adding consumer-specific information, such as the recipient's name, benefited the advertisers.
Their main experiment tested one change: putting the recipient's name in the subject line. That raised the probability of the email being opened by 20%, from 9.05% to 10.80%. The authors report that this translated into a 31% increase in sales leads, from 0.39% to 0.51%, and a 17% reduction in the number of people unsubscribing from the campaign, from 1.2% to 1.0%.
The authors also ran similar experiments with other companies and report that the effects extend from acquiring new customers to retaining customers who had already bought from the company, which in my reading is the closest thing in the study to an agent's past-client list. They note that a name is not likely to tell the reader anything about the product or the company. They call it noninformative content, since the recipient already knows their own name, and in the main experiment the name was the change being tested.
The name seems to make people read the rest more carefully
Why would a word the reader already knows change what they do? The authors investigated several possible mechanisms using detailed measures of how recipients interacted with each email, and their analysis suggests this kind of content increases the effort people make in processing the rest of the advertising message.
I find that explanation useful because it moves attention to everything after the subject line. On the authors' account, the name does its work by getting the reader to put more effort into whatever follows it. For an agent, I take that to mean the body of the email is where the time should go, because the reader is now giving it closer attention.
These were marketing emails from companies to large lists of consumers, and the study wasn't about real estate. It didn't test a note from an agent to a client they helped buy or sell a home, and the outcomes the abstract reports are campaign measures such as opens and unsubscribes. Applying it to how an agent keeps in touch with past clients is my own reading. I think it carries over because a past-client email arrives in the same inbox as every retailer's promotion, and the authors found the effect held for retaining existing customers as well as acquiring new ones.
Use the name to open the email and a detail about the client to fill it
Agents I've spoken to have said a lot of their past-client contact goes out as one newsletter to the whole database. If that describes yours, adding each client's first name to the subject line is the first change I'd make this month. It is also the version closest to what the study tested, which was campaign email to large lists.
Check your data before you send it. The study tested correct names, and my view is that a merge field that pulls a misspelled name or leaves the field empty will read to a client as a mass mailing and undo the personal touch you were aiming for. Spend twenty minutes cleaning the first-name field on your past-client list before the next send.
Then write the body for the closer read the name is buying. Picture a client two years after buying a house with a large backyard they planned to landscape. A short note that asks how the garden turned out gives that reader something about their own life to engage with. The study didn't test detail of this kind, so this part is my own reasoning from the mechanism the authors describe: if the name raises the effort someone puts into reading, the body is where that effort lands.
I'd also keep the name for emails whose body has something for that person. A generic market update with a first name in the subject line may still get opened, and in my view it spends the reader's extra attention on content that could have gone to anyone. Where you have nothing specific to say to a client, a plain newsletter with an honest subject line is the better choice for that send.
Finally, watch your unsubscribes. The main experiment found fewer people unsubscribed when the subject line carried their name, and your own opt-out numbers from month to month are the simplest way to judge whether your nurture emails are welcome.
Specific emails at scale depend on a detailed contact record
Adding a name takes seconds in almost any email tool. Making the rest of each message specific to the person reading it is harder when you have hundreds of past clients and several live deals. Specific emails are also, in my view, the most useful way of staying top of mind with past clients, since each one gives the client a reason to read it.
Worthington keeps a rich record for every contact, logging details from your email automatically and keeping durable facts such as a birthday or a partner's name. He draws on relationship-marketing research to build individualized nurturing strategies from those records, and he drafts each message in your voice for you to review and send. He also knows when to follow up and when to say nothing at all, which matters if you only want to send a personal email when you have something personal to say.
The study measured a small addition to a subject line, and the authors' analysis suggests people read on with more effort once it was there. For agents, I think the useful response is to make sure each past client finds something about their own home or plans once they open the email, and to leave the name off anything that doesn't have it.
Common questions
Does adding a client's name to the subject line work for real estate emails?
The study didn't look at real estate. It ran field experiments with three companies selling a diverse set of products and found that a name in the subject line raised opens and sales leads in the main experiment. Applying that to agents is my own reading, and I think it holds because past-client emails compete in the same inbox as every other campaign.
Will personalizing my emails reduce unsubscribes?
In the main experiment, adding the recipient's name to the subject line reduced unsubscribes from the campaign from 1.2% to 1.0%. That was a company campaign to a large list, so I'd treat it as a reason to try the change on your own list and track your opt-out numbers over the following months.
Is a first name in the subject line enough to count as personalized nurturing?
In my view it's a starting point. The authors describe the name as noninformative content that seems to increase the effort people put into reading the rest of the message. Personalized nurturing, as I use the term, means that rest of the message draws on what you know about the client.
Does this apply to new leads as well as past clients?
The authors report that, in experiments with other companies, the effects extended from acquiring new customers to retaining customers who had bought before. So I'd use the lead's name in first-touch emails as well as in check-ins with past clients, as long as the name on file is correct.
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