From stars and snowflakes to smiling faces and smiling feces, we’ve fallen in love with emojis. While we regularly see emojis in texts and social media posts, these cute little icons are also valuable tools for email marketers.
What makes them so valuable? Perhaps it’s because emojis stand out in an inbox dominated by text. Maybe it’s because subscribers can process pictures exponentially faster than text. Or it could be because icons communicate emotion more effectively than text. What we know from testing is that strategically and sparingly adding an emoji to a subject line drives higher open rates.
Let’s look at just one case study. This past spring, Entertainment Cruise Productions ran a promotion for their email subscribers. Subscribers who booked a cabin on The 80s Cruise during a promotional period were entered to win an unlimited beverage package during the cruise. We split the list of recipients into two groups. Group A received a subject line with the clinking beer mug emoji, ?. Group B received a subject line with just text.
Aug 28, 2020 I said it earlier, but I’ll reiterate here— emojis and emoticons are great at grabbing people’s attention. If you open your email and only one subject line has an emoji in it, that’s probably the first place your eye is going. The bright pop of color, especially against the new dark modes available on some devices, draws people in.
You can also resize the image inside email if required to adjust the size. Unfortunately, Outlook does not allow inserting GIF images, so you cannot insert animated emoji stickers. Insert Emoji in Outlook Mac Office 365. Similar to Windows, you can use different ways to insert emoji in Outlook Mac. Using AutoCorrect.
Highlight the symbol with your cursor and copy and paste into your subject line. Another quick way to add emojis into your subject line if you’re creating your email with an IOS device is using your emoji keyboard to choose the emoji you want and add it in. Simple as that. Add Emoticons to Outlook E-Mail Messages Use the built-in emoji tool to add expressions to emails with just a few clicks. Open a New message, Reply to a message, or Forward a message to open a new email in the Reading Pane.
Group A: Book Early and You Could Win Unlimited Drinks! ?
Group B: Book Early and You Could Win Unlimited Drinks!
The group with the emoji had an 18 percent lift in open rates over the group without the emoji.
In a holiday email, a client tested the use of the Christmas tree emoji, ?. This time the emoji was used at the beginning of the subject line. Group A received an email with the emoji in the subject line, and group B received no emoji. Using the Christmas tree led to a 37 percent increase in open rates.
Things to Consider Before Adding Emojis to Subject Lines
A few emojis go a long way. We recommend that you add emojis to email subject lines only when they are relevant. Using too many subject line emojis or using them in all of your email could cause subscribers to perceive your email as spam.
Run tests to ensure your subscribers think you’re as fun and cute as you think you are. Conduct A/B split tests with group A receiving the subject line with the emoji and group B receiving no emoji. You’ll likely see a boost in opens (and subsequent clicks and conversions), but if you don’t, it’s best to cut back on emoji use.
Run rendering checks in as many live inboxes as possible. We’ve found Yahoo to be the trickiest email client to work with for emojis. Certain emojis appear as meaningless code in Yahoo. AOL can also be problematic as it will strip certain emojis from the subject line.
If this happens, you can either choose a different, more common emoji or exclude Yahoo or AOL subscribers from your main delivery and send them a version without the emoji. (Katey Charles Communications clients who need help with list exclusions can contact Tech Support for fast assistance.)
How to Add Emojis
If you can copy and paste, you can add an emoji to your email subject line! Simply highlight the emoji below and tap CTRL-C. Then place your cursor in the subject line field of your email marketing software and press CTRL-V.
A word of caution: Be sure to run rendering checks in as many live inboxes as possible. Different email clients render emojis differently. For example, some provide a color version while others are in black and white. Don’t rely on rendering simulation programs.
Here are a few of our favorite subject line emojis.
Symbol
Description
☀
Sun
★
Star
⛄
Snowman
♪
Musical note
✈
Airplane
❤
Heart
✔
Check mark
→
Arrow
❄
Snowflake
You can copy more emoji and symbol choices through the Facebook symbols website and on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat#Unicode and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Symbols. Be sure to test these emojis before including them in a live email.
Note: These instructions apply to the email marketing software we offer to our clients, and may not apply to other email marketing programs.
We Can Help!
Want some help with your subject lines and overall subscriber engagement? We’d love to learn about your business so we can help you create email your subscribers want to receive. Tell us what you need by calling 314-918-8088, ext. 106, or emailing *protected email*
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This keyboard shortcut is a game changer.
By Jill FanslauApril 9, 2019
We recently held an AWeber customer workshop in Orlando, Florida. While we were there, one of the most frequently asked questions we received wasn’t about deliverability or what to write in your emails or the most popular integrations.
Nope. It had to do with emojis. Or, more specifically, “How do you add an emoji to an email subject line?”
Luckily, we had an easy answer: AWeber’s drag-and-drop editor has anemoji keyboard built inside its subject line field! That means you can add your favorite teeny-tiny hearts ?, smiley faces ?, and clapping hands ?? to your subject lines with a click!
How to add emojis to an email subject line in AWeber
Step 1: Open your email draft inside your AWeber account.
Step 2: Go to the subject field at the top left of the drag-and-drop editor, and hit the white smiley face inside. (It will turn yellow.) An emoji keyboard will pop up.
Step 3: Click on an emoji to insert it into your subject line.
That’s it! It’s that simple. You can even copy and paste emojis from the keyboard and insert them into your email copy. Twin otter manual pdf.
(Don’t have an AWeber account yet? Sign up today to build your list, create an email, and analyze your results! Your first 30 days are completely free.)
Pro tips for using the emoji keyboard in AWeber
The emojis you’ve used most recently will be stored at the top of the window.
Scroll through the emoji categories along the top of the keyboard. (Categories: smileys and people, animals and nature, food and drink, activity, travel and places, objects, symbols, and flags.)
Use the magnifying glass to easily search for emojis instead of scrolling through them all.
Hover your mouse over an emoji to see it larger and read its description.
Change the skin tone in the “people” emoji category by clicking on the small dot in the bottom righthand corner of the keyboard. A horizontal bar will appear with different color options. Select one to automatically apply it.
Should you use emojis in your email subject lines?
We wanted to find out. That’s why we recently analyzed 1,000 emails from 100 of today’s top marketers. The result: 6.9% of subject lines included emojis.
While that’s a small percentage, using emojis could increase your open rates, according to Mark Asquith, marketing expert and founder of Rebel Base Media. (Asquith was also one of the 100 top marketers whose emails we included in our research.)
How To Add Emojis In Outlook Email
“A well-placed smiley, timer, or contextual emoji used alongside a well-thought-out subject line will really make your message stand out within someone’s already very busy inbox,” said Asquith, who frequently uses emojis in his own subject lines.
When it comes to your own subject lines, our advice is to test, test, test.
Set up an A/B test of two emails — one that uses an emoji in the subject line, and one that doesn’t — and see which version your subscribers prefers. This can help you optimize your open rates in the future.
Related: Why You Need to Split Test Your Emails
AWeber lets you A/B test more than just subject lines, too. Our testing tools allows you to test almost everything, like send times, copy, templates, buttons, images, and more! Try a free 30-day trial of AWeberand you can start split testing today!