How to Create Effective Email Subject Lines

When running an email campaign, you need to ensure that you create an effective email subject line to get your audience to read on!

The first thing people see when they open up their inboxes are the subject lines of their emails. Generally, these are going to be the deciding factors in whether or not someone is going to open an email or delete it. If you want to find yourself on the better side of those two options, then you need to make sure that you are crafting effective email subject lines.

There are a few best practices when it comes to creating effective email subject lines that should be followed. Take a look below to see what you can do to increase your open rates with a few small tweaks.

Be Clear

People don’t want mystery. It might seem logical: entice your audience with an aura of mystery and they will be more inclined to open your email and read through your content. It is actually the opposite.

Roughly 84% of emails sent are spam. Yes, that’s an actual figure. When you are not clear about what people are going to see when they open up your email, you fall into that 84%. The subject line, “These 5 Facebook Marketing Tips Will Help Drive New Engagement” is much better than, “Want to Make More Money?” The latter screams spam, and you’ll be lucky if you don’t see a large unsubscribe rate as a result.

Avoid Certain Words

Email marketers should know that words like ‘free’ tend to trigger spam filters, but research has shown that there are other words that tend to lower open rates.

MailChimp conducted a study and found that there were three seemingly innocent terms that had generally lower open rates: help, percent off and reminder. If this is the content of your email, include these words in the copy and keep them out of your subject line.

Change Your Newsletter Subject Line

The tricky thing about newsletters – everything from daily to monthly – is that they all eventually start to see diminishing open rates. One way to avoid seeing a drastic drop off is to keep your subject lines fresh with every new email. If you are always sending out an email with the subject line, “My Company’s Weekly Newsletter” it will not be nearly as captivating as, “Major Discoveries Found in New Research This Week”.

The 50 Character Rule

We have to learn to work within tight spaces. If you look at your inbox and an email subject line is a lengthy sentence that ends with an ellipses (…) is that really going to interest you? Are you even going to read the full subject line? Probably not.

With so much we can be doing, reading, watching and working on, we need to capture the attention of our recipients right away. Keep your subject lines short, 50 characters maximum is optimal.

Avoid Flash

“You need to BUY NOW!” is horrible. So horrible. And anything like it is also horrible.

Nobody wants to read whatever is in this email. In fact, the only reason why you might see some opens is because people wanted to click on the unsubscribe link. Avoid flash like CAPS, exclamation points, multiple punctuation (!!!) and anything that might “grab the attention” of your audience. It does, but for all the wrong reasons.

Stick to these best practices and you will certainly see some better performance with your emails. One of the best questions to ask yourself is, “Would I open this email if it came to me?” That question will generally give you the answer you’re looking for.

How do you craft effective email subject lines to increase your open rates? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!