ALL CAPS in email marketing, or TREAT YOURSELF
As I mentioned in my previous post about ALL CAPS and their effect on open rates, the style of writing appears to be omnipresent in marketing. It is truly difficult to find a piece of marketing that does not include some word or phrase in ALL CAPS.
Since the last post was on subject lines, let’s continue that a bit and see what ALL CAPS look like in action.
The company we’re going to look at is called Chrome Industries and they make all sorts of high quality bags – backpacks, bike bags, messenger bags, and more.
Here’s what some recent subject lines from Chrome Industries look like in my inbox:
What kinds of words are in ALL CAPS here? There are two subject lines that start with ALL CAPS, signaling an immediate emphasis on the language of the subject line.
Then there is a product name (TILIT), not necessarily emphasizing anything here or calling attention to itself.
And finally, there are two examples of OFF – a classic use of ALL CAPS when the subject line indicates a sale. Why is this classic? Because it’s an old trick in marketing.
Marketing texts often do a thing where they offer an incentive to potential customers. There’s no better example of doing this than a sale. “If you buy our product, we won’t charge you as much as usual!” That’s pretty incentivizing, right?
In this case, the incentive of 20% OFF is emphasized with ALL CAPS. You eye is drawn to the deal by the use of capital letters. They are quite literally easier to recognize in the inbox.
(There are two other old tricks being used in the subject lines here – using pressure tactics and applying pressure tactics. But those are posts for another time.)
By the way, in case you thought I was lying about ALL CAPS being ubiquitous in (email) marketing, here’s the top of the body section of one of Chrome Industries’ emails. Almost every single word here is WRITTEN LIKE THIS!
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