5 Secrets to writting Effective Email Subject Lines

Think back to the last time you engaged in email marketing. We are pretty sure that a lot of research went into the content of the email. The communication – visual and text, the flow of information, the call to action – we are pretty sure you and your team mates wanted to get it right to the point of every excruciating detail.But think about the time you spent on writing the subject line for the mailer? 10 minutes? 5? Not even that?Truth be told, if you haven’t been giving importance to framing your subject lines, you have been playing a very risky gamble. Reports suggest, 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone. The numbers shouldn’t really come across as alarming, because come on, think about your own email checking habits – what makes you decide that a email is worthy of your time? Isn’t the subject lines a major part (if not all) of that split second decision?Think about your subject lines as packaging for your mailer. Just like a product that needs good packaging to be taken seriously at store shelves, the same is the case with your emails.So what can you do to make sure that you are catching the eye (literally) of your recipient?Well we’re not saying that we have brought it down to an exact science, but we can arm your with a few tricks that you can use in permutations and combinations to see what’s working for your target audience.

Following are the five points that we have noticed are common in our mails that get opened the most:

1. The 3 Ps: Precise, to the Point and Personal

A person spends less than half a second skimming through your subject line; it has to be precise for all you know. Going precise doesn’t however mean that you will string a pointless phrase together. It must be about the content of your mail. Think of it from a CTA perspective. Your subject line should be very much aligned to the action that you want your recipient to take after reading the mail. But the singular voice and personality of your brand cannot get lost in the humdrum of it all. You have to keep the conversation one on one with your recipients.

2. Numbers can help

Numbers speak a thousand words, yes they do. So they can help you keep things short and also add credibility to your claim. Numbers present an objective message about what you are offering, and set the exact expectations. They keep you from being vague.

3. Puns work big time

People love puns, especially when they are funny. Punny is the hottest train in town and we are sure you have already booked your seat on it. The best thing about puns in email subject lines is that puns not only draw your audience with wit, they also add a flavor to your mailer which gives it a much needed context. Don’t overdo it, though. You don’t want to antagonize anyone with over attempting at a pun or worse elicit an eye roll.

4. Don’t look or sound hyper

By looking or sounding hyper we mean don’t WRITE LIKE THIS or THIS!!!!!!! You might think that it helps highlight your text in the sea of other emails but what it does to recipients is rub them the wrong way. All caps is never a good idea,and such attempts at making your mail look or sound urgent only triggers spam alerts, and you should do everything you can to stay away from those.

5. A/B test to assess

Nothing like good ol’ hit and trial; not every subject line will work with everyone obviously. So guess what? You don’t have to leave it all to intuition. Test what kind of subject lines are working with your audience. All of whatever we suggested above, some points may be killer with your audience, others not so much; it will not take too much time to figure out honestly; you just need to put different subject lines of the same email to test.

Email marketing is still a very important segment of communication for big and small enterprises alike. So you don’t want people to just ignore them. You want your recipients to at least open them.Perfect subject lines will help you achieve just that.

A business as you understand is made of such little things, and if you are having difficulties realizing your estimated potential, it is very much possible that you are underestimating the importance of one or many of these factors. So talk to us, talk about your finite and infinite organizational goals and let us tell you ways in which we can help you do better.