Did you click?
We thought you would.
Our clothes are on. We are working hard. Just another normal day at the offices.
But we thought you would click.
Where are we going with this? The subject line.
The chances of your email being ignored are pretty high – unless of course, you have an attention grabbing subject line. Your subject line is your first (and maybe your last) impression on users. In many ways, your email subject line is more important than your email body. After all, a great newsletter is worthless if it never sees the light of day.
Here’s a few examples to get you going:
- Use humor. Funny sells. And funny gets the opens. Some of our highest opens in 2015 appealed to the funny bone.
- A little bit of “shock” might help, in some cases. Our opens skyrocketed when we had a well-known Columbus real estate icon flipping burgers. (Special Announcement: Doug is Flipping Careers)
- Emotionally walloping words make a great first impression. Consider one word, like “panic”. Or “word”, even. It instills enough curiosity for the visitor to click, and it’s thumb stopping. The MJ2 subject line of our Spring 2015 email had our highest open rates yet. (Stuff…)
- Create a little mystery. People dig mystery. Giving readers a little taste of something intriguing might cause them to bite. (Peeking into 2016)
So, how to come up with the best possible email subject lines?
Follow these simple tips:
- Practice. You should write 10 subject lines for every email, just as you should write 10 titles for every blog post. Then choose the best.
- Keep it under 50 characters.
- Know your audience. Your best bet for creating good email subject lines will be understanding your audience intimately and catering to them. Matching your audience’s interests and mannerisms is essential if you really want solid open rates.
- What’s your tone? Most good email subject lines rely on a conversationalist tone to attract readers.
- Call to action. It’s never a bad idea to try a call to action in your email subject line. While many opt-out due to limited character space, call to actions may improve open rates.
- The “From” field. Keep your “from” section professional and consistent for business subject lines. Only a few businesses can get away with this level of goofiness (aka, Chubbies). Most business emails put their brand name in the “from” field, or go with something along the lines of “Bill Gates from Microsoft.”
- Pay attention to the preview. The email preview that follows the subject line is a valuable piece of property. Don’t miss out on this chance to fill that line with valuable text.
