Coming up with a great subject line for an email marketing campaign isn’t as easy as you might think. There is no step-by-step process you can follow to ensure success, but get it wrong and your open rates and overall email campaign performance will suffer. As the email subject line is the first thing the reader sees when they’re deciding which emails to open and read, it’s vitally important you get it right.
This is particularly true for B2B email campaigns, where the readers are likely to be time poor – you need to work hard to convince them it’s worth spending their time reading your email and you only have a few seconds to do it.
Another reason it’s crucial to spend time perfecting your email subject line is to ensure your email campaign isn’t considered spam. Emails that look like spam will either get deleted by the reader or junked by spam filters, wasting your marketing investment.
So how do you write a great email subject line that will motivate your audience to open and read your message? Let’s consider some things you should try and some things you should avoid.
1. Attract attention
It’s important to tell the reader what to expect in your email in your subject line, but don’t reveal everything – give enough information to attract their attention, but leave them wanting more.
2. Inspire a click
If you manage to intrigue your readers, you should be well on your way to inspiring them to click on your email. Tell them what’s in it for them and they are sure to.
3. Include your company name
Including your company name makes it easy for the recipient to immediately know who the offer is coming from and this is particularly effective if you already have a relationship with the reader.
4. Include personal details
Personalising your subject line to your recipient, for example including their name, will always work well to grab their attention, make them feel special and increase relevance to them.
5. Keep it short and simple
Try and keep to around 50 characters including spaces to ensure your whole email subject line is displayed as intended. Most popular email readers (e.g. Yahoo, Hotmail) don’t display more characters than this.
6. Try not to use the word “free”
We would advise you not use the word “free” in your subject line as it is often considered to be a spam keyword. Most email servers automatically junk any emails that contain spam keywords in their subject line. If you still want to try using the word “free”, don’t use it in conjunction with punctuation or capitalise it.
7. Don’t over use punctuation
Punctuation, like exclamation marks, can be used for emphasis but can annoy and confuse aswell, so they are best not used in your subject line.
8. Spend enough time on it
A common mistake is to leave the subject line until last and not spend enough time trying to get it right. It’s important to the success of your campaign and you should give it the consideration it deserves.
Of course you’ll need to keep testing to find out which subject line works best for each of your email campaigns. What works for one might not work for another. See which ones generate the highest click-throughs, the most leads and convert the most sales for you.
