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Hi there friend,

I love baseball.

My career in little league started and ended at the bottom of the batting order. But I love the feeling of a ball hitting my glove or ripping dingers in a batting cage. But if there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s watching baseball or listening to games on the radio.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Major League Baseball (MLB) games averaged 1,517,000 viewers this year (up 7% from 2022). The teams remaining in the playoffs have an average of 1,512,993 followers on X (formerly Twitter).

MLB teams have massive audiences. So who better to learn from their email marketing programs to see what they’re doing to stay in touch with this huge pool of fans.

We’re working on an email analysis tool to help you send better, more secure emails. On October 5, 2023 we set it to read emails coming from playoff teams. As of October 17th we’ve evaluated the 55 emails sent by the teams and have learned quite a lot of interesting things that you could learn from to improve the emails you send your audience.

Your subject line is like the scent wafting a food stand at the stadium. If it doesn’t immediately catch your attention, you’re probably going to just move on.

MLB teams are doing some good things with their subject lines, and some things that could be improved.

Highlights

Generally Good Subject Line Lengths

The average subject line length is 38 characters. That’s a good spot to be. You generally want a subject line between 30 and 60 characters so it renders well on devices like phones, and narrow web browsers.

Subject Lines with Personality

The Astros use some really attention grabbing wording in their subject lines like "Astroblast" and “Texas-sized ALCS Matchup.” This is a great example of treating your subject line like content and not just an afterthought.

Include Important at-a-glance Information

The Braves include specific timings in several subject lines which gives fans clear information right away.

Focus on Triggering an Emotional Reaction

Subject lines such as "Astros Advance to the ALCS!" by the Astros, and "Chaos Continues! The D-backs are NLDS Champs! 🏆" by the Diamondbacks are focused on capitalizing on the excitement fans are feeling.

The Orioles and Twins use team-specific language like “Birdland” and “Twins Territory” which creates a sense of community and loyalty.

Improvements & Experiments

More Personalization

Teams should consider adding their fan’s name in the subject line. We've written in the past about how personalization can significantly improve engagement.

The nice thing is, as long as you're getting things like your subscribers names and locations when they sign up, it's really easy to start making your email more personal.

Use Emojis where Appropriate

Only the Diamondbacks used an emoji in their subject line. More teams could experiment with emojis for added flair and to catch attention, but this should be done sparingly to avoid looking unprofessional.

This could be because teams have tested emoji and found it wasn't helpful, but if you haven't tested including emoji in your subject lines, it's one of the simplest tests you can run.

Test and Iterate

It's crucial to track which subject lines perform best in terms of open rates and engagement.

Teams should be A/B testing subject lines to see what resonate more with their audience.

In my experience, you should test the wildest ideas you have (that aren’t going to make your audience feel bad). It’s the out there experiments that usually have the biggest impacts.

Action Items

Like I said at the beginning, you can apply lessons from both what is going right and what could be improved to your own email programs.

Next week we’ll be covering the multiple lessons we can learn from the actual content of these emails. You’ll want to read that one, it’s got a metric ton of helpful info.

For now, here’s a quick checklist to help your subject lines make your email the MVP (Most Valuable Piece-of-email):

What did you think of this email?

❤️❤️❤️ Loved it. Can't wait to get the next one.

💔 I didn't really care for it.

Would you be Interested in having your email graded?

Marketing is constantly evolving, and it can be hard to stay on top of the best practices and requirements to send great email.

All of the data in this email came from an email grading tool we use that highlights all sorts of ways to improve your email marketing. If you’re interested in using this tool for your own emails, let me know.

Holiday Marketing Tip:

Make sure your emails have calls-to-action that your potential customers can’t miss. I know it can be difficult to ask for a sale, but if you want people to buy, you have to be clear.

This is a great example of a clear ask from BarkBox (btw, if you’re ever looking for email inspiration, check out ReallyGoodEmails).

Get our latest expert advice and helpful tips 

As always, thanks for reading!

- Chris V. and the rest of the AWeber team