Subject lines are the first thing seen by someone when they open their inbox, and as such are one of the most important elements of any email campaign – possibly the single most influential part of any email. Here’s some pointers on how to get it just right:

• Who needs Subject Lines…? – a clever strategy from Southwest Airlines
• Straight Talk on Subject Lines – four essential points to note
• Thoughts on email subject lines – what’s compelling – and why?
• Email Marketing Minute – “Subject Line Special Characters”
• Subject lines: Amazon’s lessons on discounts and frontloading – stats, analysis, and conclusions
• 7 fixes for terrible subject lines – dos and don’ts from iMediaConnection.com

The Wall Street Journal posted an article this week with the title “Why Email No Longer Rules… And what that means for the way we communicate“¹. In all honesty, this is — as you may have predicted — not true; at least as discussed by many of the prominent bloggers out there. This isn’t the first time the death of email has been predicted, and I’m certain it won’t be the last.

This week’s special mention goes to a post by Neil Schwartzman, Spamfighter.com are Spammers (reached via laura on Word to the Wise). An interesting tale of how not to deal with customers – made even more wince-worthy by the comments from the CEO of SPAMfighter.com below the post.

¹ This may be a little geeky, but can I say, what the hell is up with WSJ’s URLs? Ye gods, people, this isn’t 1995! How are we supposed to take advice on the latest forefronts of technology from a company that can’t even translate SB10001424052970203803904574431151489408372.html into something a little more friendly?

One of the more meaty topics this week has been the never-ending flood of spam:

• Barracuda and BarracudaCentral RBL – hidden pitfalls of this anti-spam service
• Important information for users of spamassassin – and bl.open-whois.org
• MessageLabs Stats: Spam Learns a New Language – foreign spam on the rise
• More Spam? Say it ain’t so! – all spam on the rise
• There Oughta Be A Law! – “Anti-Spam Legislation Around the World, Part 1″
• You might be a spammer if… – … you read this post’s comments without smiling

Widely reported this week was the news that AOL are no longer providing report cards on people who have received a high number of spam complaints. Fortunately this doesn’t affect Sign-Up.to, as we already closely monitor our feedback loops and will be in touch with clients long before they reached the 30% threshold that previously trigged a report card from AOL.

Speaking of reports, this week’s special mention must go to our very own Matt McNeill, who has painstakingly cleaned, sorted, and analysed over 200 million emails in order to present us with the most comprehensive Email Marketing Benchmark Report in the UK. Check it out for all sorts of statistical goodness related to industry averages for bounce rates, unsubscribes, clicks, and more.

Embedding video into emails is a topic you’ll see discussed on a semi-regular basis, so first up this week I’d like to share three great articles about embedding video:

• How to Embed Video in Email
• More On The Video Boom: Choosing The Best Content For Video In Email
• Video email: when to use it

Yahoo! has been in the news this week, with much discussion about its suggested penny-per-email system where the proceeds go to charity. Of course, this is just in research at the moment, but it’s an intriguing concept nonetheless. Check out CentMail.net to sign up for more information about this when (and if) it launches.

Over the pond, one of the big stories was the news that The White House may have been buying lists and sending spam, after the Press Secretary was questioned about an email sent out by the President’s Senior Adviser, David Axelrod. As ReturnPath points out, this is great press for the permission-based marketing model.

Also as a special mention I’d like to link to a site I came across recently called Which Test Won? by Anne Holland, where she reviews various different split tests and their results. The format of the site is great — you have to vote on which result you think won before you get to see the winner and accompanying discussion — and the topics covered are a fascinating insight into the kinds of things that can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of any marketing campaign – even though you would never have suspected they might.