If you have a furry companion, you know just how much thought and care goes into looking after them. Your customers want the best for their pets too. And they’ve signed up to your newsletter, they’re warm enough for your pet care brand to believe that you may offer the best products for their companions. 

Email marketing is a great way to foster a relationship with your audience of pet owners. Here are some tips on how to build engaging emails to connect with them. 

Make your catch subject line’s value clear

While it can be tempting to be suspenseful and mysterious in your email subject line, “Can you keep a secret?” doesn’t garner much incentive to actually click on the email. 

Subject lines should be upfront and clear about the benefits the customer will receive by opening the email. While there is a time and a place for a suspenseful subject line, they should follow a proper code of conduct. Most importantly, make sure there is an appropriate payoff for your customer to open your email. 

Chief Marketing Officer at Copper, Carrie Shaw, says it best. “Bottom line? Don’t confuse. Don’t mislead. Don’t bait-and-switch them. You need subscribers to open your emails, click on the link, and stay subscribed because they like it or found it useful.”

Connect emotionally and personally

Dogs are man’s best friend. And other animals fit the bill just as well! Keep the importance of the pet to your customer in mind. 

Opt for caring and supportive language in your subject lines to appeal to the emotions of your customer. This requires knowing your audience and how your brand has been utilized or integrated into their lives. 

One newsletter from Petfinder has automatic email reminders whenever their client receives a new match for a potential pet. Their subject lines for these reminders will sometimes appear as “Pet Lover, we’ve found new dogs that are a match!” In this subject line, we see a level of excitement that echoes the feelings of their customer – an expectant potential pet owner. 

Words to use and not to use

Avoid language associated with spam emails. Opt for power words, instead. You’ll often find increased use of power words in article titles. Some power words you may want to consider include:

• Brilliant 
• Spellbinding 
• Cringeworthy
• Harsh
• Inspirational 
• Mind-blowing 
• Cautiously  
• Improving 
• Relaxing
• Easy
• Oddly satisfying

You may have noticed the popularity of these words in mainstream media over recent years. This is due to their tendency to increase clickthrough rate, which makes them more desirable to companies with that same goal. For example, the term “oddly satisfying” has sprouted a media content genre all of its own with different creators generating slime and paint peeling videos unique to their platform. 

Just as there are words you should consider, there are equally as many to avoid when writing your promotional subject line. As an exercise, go through your spam inbox and jot down what words you find pop up most frequently.

Keep it short, sweet and segmented

When it comes to sending emails, don’t overwhelm your subscribed contacts with irrelevant information. Instead, segment your campaigns so they reach the right audience. According to MailChimp, “Segmented email marketing campaigns result in 23% higher open rates and 49% higher click-through rates than unsegmented campaigns.” 

This can be done by collecting data through relevant information provided by the customer when they sign up for your newsletter. Segmentation allows for deeper personalization which can appeal to consumer emotions on a more authentic level. 

When you take the time to address the specific needs of different customers, you increase the chance of piquing their interest in addition to further nourishing the trust and credibility within your relationship. Some segmentation ideas for Pet Supply/Care brands may include:

• Pet type
• Ret size
• Pet sex 
• Pumber of pets 
• New pet owners
• Highest spending customers
• Customers withholding purchases for 6 months 
• Where they signed up (in-store or online)
• Loyalty program users
• Reminders (especially useful for purchasing food and cage/tank cleaning supplies!)

How to use Backstroke's AI subject line generator

When using Backstroke, start by selecting Pet Care from the industry options. Then click the Generate button. In seconds, AI provides potential subject lines! You can hit the plus button to see alternative options. 

The options our AI generates for your industry are differentiated based on a multitude of factors such as the time of year, data from both trends and your competitors, current media trends and trending keywords, and more. 

When you see something you like, go ahead and click the copy button, heart button (to save the idea for later), or the reserve button to use it exclusively. 

And just like that, you’re all set! From here you can paste it into your newsletter’s subject line and it’s ready to send.

Go ahead and try it for free!