• by Bill McCloskey , April 20, 2005

I love new toys.

We just added a new feature in our E-mail Analyst software that allows me to search the subject line or body text of the quarter million unique e-mail messages in our database for any key word or phrase.

I thought it would be interesting to type in a few to see the frequency of various common keywords and phrases. Below are the numbers of occurrences of certain words in the e-mail messages we have collected over the past two years. It is based on our current coverage of e-mail marketing sectors.

Holidays and Special Events:

Mother's Day:

Subject Line: 12 Occurrences

Body Text: 20 Occurrences

Father's Day:

Subject Line: 5 Occurrences

Body Text: 27 Occurrences

It is interesting to note that Father's Day appeared in the subject line less than half the amount of times Mother's Day did, but more times in the body text. On closer examination though, it turned out the multiple occurrences of Father's Day were due to a single financial newsletter doing an ongoing Father's Day promotion. When looking at unique lists, Mother's Day wins the day, and most of these e-mails were in the flowers and gift basket sector

Christmas:

Subject Line: 805 Occurrences

Body Text: 2,502 Occurrences

Chanukah

Subject Line: 1 Occurrence

Body Text: 12 Occurrences

Kwanzaa

Subject Line: 0 Occurrence

Body Text: 8 Occurrences

Well, I guess not a huge surprise here. It gives you a perspective on the relative commercialism surrounding these particular holiday events.

Arbor Day:

Subject Line: 0 Occurrence

Body Text: 12 Occurrences

New Year's:

Subject Line: 75 Occurrences

Body Text: 87 Occurrences

Memorial Day

Subject Line: 22 Occurrences

Body Text: 103 Occurrences

Presidents Day

Subject Line: 22 Occurrences

Body Text: 35 Occurrences

Thanksgiving

Subject Line: 184 Occurrences

Body Text: 730 Occurrences

I guess the big surprise here is how underutilized Presidents Day and Memorial Day are as an e-mail marketing event. It looks like there is an opportunity here for some smart marketers.

Marketing and Sales Terms

The word "Free"

Subject Line: 15,782 Occurrences

Body Text: 84,093 Occurrences

The phrase "Low Cost"

Subject Line: 49 Occurrences

Body Text: 1,071 Occurrences

(An homage to Crazy Eddie): The word "insane"

Subject Line: 3 Occurrences

Body Text: 136 Occurrences

The word "closeout" or "Close Out"

Subject Line: 39 Occurrences

Body Text: 463 Occurrences

The phrase "Save Money"

Subject Line: 134 Occurrences

Body Text: 1,607 Occurrences

Companies

IBM

Subject Line: 699 Occurrences

Body Text: 5,499 Occurrences

Dell

Subject Line: 615 Occurrences

Body Text: 4,682 Occurrences

HP

Subject Line: 854 Occurrences

Body Text: 5,297 Occurrences

What is interesting here is the closeness of these competitors in frequency. The reason that HP is mentioned more in the subject line is due, it seems, to their printer line and all the online ink cartridge companies promoting their wares.

Wal-Mart

Subject Line: 223 Occurrences

Body Text: 1,864 Occurrences

Kmart

Subject Line: 507 Occurrences

Body Text: 984 Occurrences

Home Depot

Subject Line: 113 Occurrences

Body Text: 1,244 Occurrences

Sears

Subject Line: 752 Occurrences

Body Text: 1,092 Occurrences

Here is an interesting phenomenon. Wal-Mart is mentioned half as many times in the body as Kmart, but appears twice as many times in the subject of the e-mails in our database. In many cases this is due to companies using the Wal-Mart name to get people to opt in to e-mail solicitations by holding out the offer of a free "Wal-Mart" gift card if you sign up.

We could go on and on like this, but we need to stop somewhere. If you'd like to see something like this in the future, send me your keywords you are most interested in, and we'll run another report.