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Email marketing is essential to any content marketing strategy, allowing you to send commercial messages to potential and established customers.
The best email subject lines will grab readers’ attention and encourage them to click on the full email. It will be short and punchy and encourage the reader to take action – whether that’s to use a special promotion or buy a product or service.
In this article, we’ll cover the importance of subject lines by answering the following questions:
- Email Marketing Campaigns: What Are They?
- What Are Email Subject Lines?
- Top 9 Ways to Make Your Subject Lines Better
Key Takeaways
- Email marketing involves sending out commercial messages to potential and returning customers via email addresses.
- Email subject lines are the first thing a recipient sees when receiving a promotional email.
- An email subject line should be concise and relevant to the email’s content while also being engaging and encouraging the recipient to act.
Email Marketing Campaigns: What Are They?
Email marketing is a part of digital marketing, sending commercial messages to potential and returning customers via email.
Typically, email marketing will include promotional content, special offers, newsletters, and events related to the business. Through email engagement, businesses can build relationships with their customers and generate leads and sales.
Successful email marketing results in higher engagement rates, increased conversions, and a stronger return on investment.
What Are Email Subject Lines?
Creating interesting subject lines should be part of the strategy when devising an email marketing campaign. They are the first thing a recipient sees when receiving an email, so they play a crucial role in getting them to open and read the content inside.
Email subject lines communicate a clear message and capture the recipient’s attention, giving them a reason to open the email.
An interesting subject line should be concise and relevant to the email’s content while also being engaging and encouraging the recipient to act, such as clicking through to a website or buying a product.
Clearly, the importance of subject lines cannot be understated. Think of them like the headline of an article – a boring and wordy title does not attract as many clicks as one that’s short and punchy.
Top 9 Ways to Make Your Subject Lines Better
Now you understand the importance of subject lines, it’s time to boost your email marketing campaign with these nine tried and true tips.
1. Keep it Short
An email subject line should be no more than 50 characters, ideally between 25 and 30. On mobile devices, anything over 30 characters isn’t displayed, so it’s essential to keep your email subject lines short and to-to-point. A good subject line will convey everything needed in one sentence.
2. Personalise the Subject Line
The best subject lines are personalised. Using their first name is guaranteed to capture the recipient’s attention.
When planning your email marketing campaign, consider gathering data from email addresses and collecting the user’s name or company to write the perfect subject line guaranteed to catch their eye.
3. Be Specific
If you’re advertising a special offer, using specific amounts of money or days to redeem your offer is a compelling way to pique the recipient’s interest and get the audience to act.
4. Ask a Question
Asking thoughtful questions in your subject lines can be a way to get your recipient’s thinking and encourage them to click on the email to get answers.
5. Add the Essential Words at the Beginning
When quickly glancing at subject lines, we tend to focus our attention on the first and last three words of a sentence. Focus on drawing the reader in by putting all the relevant information at the beginning of the subject line; otherwise, the reader may become uninterested.
6. Use Emojis
In a full inbox full of boring text, an emoji can draw the eye and set an informative and fun tone. Depending on the purpose of your email marketing campaign, emojis can break up the text and encourage the reader to click.
7. Create a Sense of Urgency
Using phrases like “Limited time offer” or “Only a few spots left” can create a sense of urgency and compel people to take action quickly.
8. Use Action-Oriented Language
By using strong, actionable verbs encouraging the recipient to act, such as “Shop now” or “Register today,” the reader will feel a sense of urgency, creating a motive to read the full email.
9. Avoid Spam Trigger Words
Avoid using spam-based trigger words such as “Free,” “Urgent,” or “Act now” in your subject line, as they may cause your email to be flagged as spam. Instead of using over used words, focus on words that accurately represent what you’re selling or offering.
FAQs
What Are Examples of Different Subject Lines?
Many examples of different types of subject lines can help you better communicate with your clients. These include:
- Personal: “Stacy, here’s your exclusive offer”
- Urgency: “Last chance to save 50%”
- Curiosity: “You won’t believe what’s inside…”
- Benefits: “Get healthy, happy, and productive with our new product”
- News: “Exciting announcement: we’re expanding to new locations!”
- Social proof: “Join thousands of satisfied customers”
- Re-engagement: “We miss you! Come back and save 20%”
- Question: “Are you ready for the holiday season?”
- Holiday-themed: “Get into the holiday spirit with our festive deals”
- Humorous: “Our boss made us send this email, but we promise it’s worth it”
Should I Use Longer Subject Lines in Emails?
Subject lines that are between 41-50 characters tend to have the highest click-through rates, but longer or shorter subject lines may also be impactful depending on your audience.
Most email platforms only display the first 40-60 characters of a subject line, so it’s essential that the most important information is at the start of your subject line.
What is an example of a Spam-Based Subject Line?
A spam-based subject line will typically include phrases that are designed to lure recipients into opening an email and taking action.
They will often sound too good to be true, with phrases like “Get rich quick” or “win a free phone.”
An email with a spam-based subject line will likely be a scam and should be avoided at all costs.
Avoid using phrases that sound too good to be true when writing your own subject line. Otherwise, your readers may lose trust in your business or service.
How Can I Measure How the Audience Responds to My Emails?
The best way to measure how your audience responds to your emails is by measuring click-through rates.
A click-through rate is a metric that measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link or call-to-action (CTA) within an email. The click-through rate is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of delivered emails and multiplying by 100 to get a final percentage.
If your emails have low click-through rates, it might be time to adapt your subject lines to better appeal to readers.