Email subject lines – the neglected child of the email campaign. Often so much thought goes into the message that the email subject line is merely an afterthought. How important is it? Think of the subject line as the hook in the sea of emails. It is the face of your email, the first thing that your subcribers see when they load their inbox.
Many marketers fail to realise the importance of writing a good, attractive subject lines. Write it badly, and you’ll get ignored. Here’s some tips on writing good subject lines:
1. Don’t sound like spam
Take a look at your spam box in your email program. If your subject lines begin with “Dear Sir or Madam…” or “**** LATEST DEALS ****”, that’s a ticket straight into the Junk folder for sure. Study your spam box carefully.
2. Be interesting, draw their attention
Know what your users like and want. If you have an interesting story, use it as the hook. Try as much as possible to connect with your user. How will you know what users want? Do some research, segment your audience or use A/B testing.
3. Be short and succinct
There’s no fixed rule to the length of your subject line but we think short and sharp is the way to go – 12-17 simple words should be fine. One reason is obvious, long lines take too long to read. Don’t forget your user is scanning the inbox and filtering key content subconsciously. Also remember that not everyone has large screens and long lines tend to get truncated at the end.
That said however, your copywriter can only go so far. To truly know which subject lines appeal to your audience you have got to use A/B testing (which means testing 2 or more lines with different segments of your audience to see which group responds best). In our experience, it makes all the difference.
