Introduction
Billions of emails are sent daily and the average worker receives about 100 emails daily.
But only a fraction of this is been opened and read by the receiving audience.
Why?
Many email marketers underestimate the power of powerful email subject lines.
If your email subject line is poorly written, it would appear unappealing and bypassed by your audience.
Your time, effort and maybe money all wasted.
I bet you don’t want that to happen to you!
Before we proceed, why is an email subject line so important?
It determines whether your email would be opened and read or not.
An email subject line is the first impression your message would have on your recipients and you wouldn’t want to lose their attention, would you? No!
A carefully written, compelling email subject line can skyrocket your open rates and make your audience look forward to your next email.
How can you craft better and powerful email subject lines that would lure your audience to open and read your email message?
In this post, I’m sharing ten tips for writing killer email subject lines that would make your audience drool with excitement when they get that notification.
Let’s dive in.
#1: Keep it Short, Stupid.
You must have probably heard the term K.I.S.S which means “Keep it simple stupid”.
In writing email subject lines, KISS means “Keep It Short, Stupid”.
On average, an email inbox only shows 60 characters of the subject line and only about 20 – 30 characters of the subject line is shown on mobile.
Moreso, over 77% of emails are opened and read on mobile phones so you’ve got to keep it pretty short and sweet. An email subject line with about 7 or 8 words is great.
#2: Include Your Audience Name.
Let’s say you receive two emails right now with two different subject lines below:
- Boost Your Website Traffic Now With These Tricks
- [Your First Name], These Surefire Tricks Would Boost Your Website Traffic.
Which one are you more likely to open and read with interest?
Let me guess!
The second one right? (I never lose when guessing…haha)
When you personalize your email subject lines by including the name of the recipient in it, you will definitely get a higher open rate than when you don’t.
It helps you build a feeling of rapport with your audience and establish friendly relationships. If you haven’t been collecting first names as well as the email address on your blog, you should begin to do so.
#3: Be Specific & Avoid Fake Promises.
Don’t be too vague or generic with your email subject line.
Be open and let your recipient know exactly what they stand to gain if they open and read your email from the subject line.
Avoid false promises. It would make your audience irritated, make them trust you less and they will eventually unsubscribe from your list
Tell them exactly what’s inside your email. If it’s a blog post, ebook or cheatsheet, let them know from your email subject line.
A subject line which reads “10 Killer SEO Strategies to Grow Your Blog Traffic by 25%” is pretty much better and specific than “How To Grow Your Blog Traffic”.
#4: Spark Curiosity.
You need to draw the attention of your recipient for them to open and read your email. An email subject line that sparks curiosity is one way of doing that.
For instance, let’s say your audience are people interested in SEO. You could use an email subject line like “Stop Making This 8 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes and watch your Commissions Double”
Do you get?
It would make them curious and get them to eventually read your email.
#5: Use a Personal Sender Name & Email Address.
Your goal in communicating with your audience is to provide value and build relationships so try to be as human as possible when emailing your audience.
It’s a more inviting and better approach to use [Your Name] & yourfirstname@yourcompany.com instead of [Your Company] & admin@yourcompany.com as the sender name and email address when sending messages to your audience.
Your recipients would be glad, more likely to reply to your email and initiate a friendly conversation.
#6: Include Numbers.
Just like with blog post titles, including numbers in your email subject lines makes it pretty much clearer and straight forward.
It’s an effective email marketing strategy to appear more accurate and unique with your message and sets you apart in a clash of subject lines.
It could be list posts, numerical benefit, discount or price of the offer, there are many ways you could use numbers in your email subject lines.
#7: Don’t Write Everything in CAPS.
Nobody loves to be yelled at!
When you write your subject line all in CAPITAL LETTERS, a lot of readers will feel irked. It’s exactly the digital equivalence of yelling.
According to a study by the Radicati Group, over 85% of respondents prefer an all-lowercase subject line to one in all caps.
If you want to place emphasis on some words, you can make them bold instead.
How would you feel if you got an email and the subject line reads “ BOOK YOUR INSTA GROWTH COACHING SEASON NOW – 45$ ONLY!!!”
You’d probably ignore the email or even unsubscribe asap, right?
Using CAPS and excessive exclamation marks in your subject line is damaging to your email campaigns.
#8: Add Keywords at the Beginning.
Dmitri Leonov, a VP at email management service SaneBox has said that a whopping 50% of emails are read on mobile phones.
Since the majority of email reads happen on mobile phones, it’s important you write your keywords and most Important words and phrases at the very beginning so important words wouldn’t be cut off.
#9: Convey Urgency.
To make your email message a priority to your recipient, you need to convey a sense of urgency in your email subject lines.
This works pretty well when you’re promoting an event or offer to your list.
You can send them a series of emails including the discount and deadline in the subject line. You can also follow up with a reminder as the deadline gets closer.
Phrases like “24 hours Left”, “85% Off”, “One Day Sale” would spur your audience to act quickly and claim your offer before it expires so they wouldn’t miss out.
#10: Do A/B Testing.
Email Marketing Tools such as MailChimp help you craft the perfect email subject line by testing and comparing the performance of different variants of your email subject line before selecting the winning subject line and sending it to the rest of your email list.
With A/B Testing of your subject line in your email campaigns, you can track and analyze how your audience responds to various subject lines so you can better understand the tactics and strategies that work and use them on a subsequent campaign.
Conclusion
In summary, the subject line of an email is the first impression your brand will make on your audience when you convey your message to them.
That single line of text can make or mar your email campaign to make sure all the great tips I mentioned above is followed when writing your next email subject line.
Now, over to you.
What tip would you be implementing in your next email campaign?
Share your thoughts below!
