Crafting Email Subject Lines – Tips and Techniques

Networks

Ahsan Khan
October 1, 2009

Consumers are inundated with email. To get over this hurdle, you need a well-written subject line to stand out from the crowd. Follow these tips and techniques to make sure your emails are not ignored.

1. Keep it short, but don't be afraid to test.
Industry gurus advocate subject lines of 50 characters or less. While this is a good rule of thumb, many experts have also found that longer subjects (more than 80 characters) can work quite well too.

The take away? TEST. A simple series of A/B subject line tests can help you find the best performing subject line format for your audience.

2. Remember that “spammy” subject lines can hurt deliverability.
Many email providers will mark an email as “spam” if it has the capitalized word “FREE” in the subject line. Excessive punctuation, such as multiple exclamation marks (I.e. “OPEN!!!”) can result in your mail being delivered straight to the junk file too.

3. Being direct is surprisingly effective.
Some email marketers try to write mysterious and/or clever subject lines to their detriment. Rather than being cryptic, write something that directly speaks to the content of the email.

4. Put your offer in your subject line to boost interest.
If your email contains a coupon or discount code, you should put that info in the subject line. Something like “Sale on women's clothing, 10% discount code inside” will often work better than “Sale on women's clothing with 10% off.” If you give your reader a reason to open your email, your success rate will increase.

5. Match the email contents to the subject line.
Nothing can ruin an email list faster than “tricking” your readers. If your subject line talks about “free shipping” and your email doesn't include information about “free shipping,” the people who open your email will feel deceived. Deception lowers trust, reduces the open rate for future mailings, and encourages people to unsubscribe.

6. Always be testing.
Every email list is different. What works for one list might be completely ineffective for another. If you're not testing subject line length, different offer text, personalized and non-personalized subject lines, etc., you're missing out on opportunities. To maximize your email marketing performance, test, test, and then test some more.

Inside Channel Marketing suggests you access your Email Campaign Dashboard to analyze email campaign data and make improvements to your strategy after every email send. If you have questions on how to do this, contact us via live chat. We’re available 24/7.