No matter what they say about not judging emails based on their subject lines, I don’t easily buy into it. Because fact of the matter is, people do judge emails by the subject lines they see. I won’t deny that I do it. And because they do, you need to get around to writing an effective email subject line.
One look at them though might be enough to make you question why they even matter. They’re such an eensy weensy part of the actual email. But they act as determining factors because they’re the first thing people see when they open their electronic mail. They, for the most part, create the first impression on your recipients.
● 35% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line (Convince&Convert).
● 20.9% of society checks their emails more than 5x a day (Fluent).
● Email ranks as third most influential source of information among B2B audiences (Wordstream).
Email is relevant and very much alive.
So, are you after your emails getting opened, clicked, and explored?
Of course, you do! That’s why writing an effective email subject line is essential.
But before we get on and uncover the treasure trove to writing catchy email subject lines, we need to go over some tried and true tips that are evergreen.
Tried and True Tips to Writing an Effective Email Subject Line
For details’ sake, let’s take a small detour and outline some of the best tried and true tricks of writing an effective email subject line.
Using a constant sender name
Think about how you feel receiving a message from a stranger versus getting an email from someone you know (or a familiar person, at the least). Also, this is applicable to your long-time email subscribers.
Name recognition is a vital part of the email subject line creation — especial for your newsletter subscribers. So, when it comes to giving a sender name, be as human as possible.
In most cases, your subscribers are after someone they can have an actual conversation with, and someone who can help them if they ask. Emily@randomcompany.com is far more welcoming and human than Company@randomcompany.com.
The best impression you can leave on your consumers is that they would be working with you — the person behind the computer, not the entirety of your company, or with a chatbot — no matter how clever or amusing they may be.
Keeping it short
72.9% of people from 18 to 24 years old use their smartphones to check their emails…
So what does that entail? It’s well known that email subject lines are cut off when they get too long. The recommended number of characters is 50 or less, so your recipients who scan through your emails actually read the entire subject line — and not just skim over it.
If you’re having trouble shrinking your email subject lines because there are way too many important details to leave out, you can try:
● Using commonly appropriate abbreviations where possible: Don’t abbreviate too much, because you don’t want your email subject line to look something like this: We’ve inclu. 5 free ltd. ed. EBs for you this Nov. One or two will do to keep that character count to a minimum.
● Excluding overly complex sentences: Less is more in writing effective email subject lines. Complete and complex sentences only get truncated in a subject line. So, for this case, phrases and short sentences will do.
● Focusing on a single brand: If you’re running a sales campaign, and there are a couple of brands to mention, don’t go through the trouble of listing them off in an email. (That’s already a given). Just make use of one popular brand, and leave the rest to the email body.
Let them know what awaits them
This idea works if your previous email campaign was one that made a promise (that told the recipients to anticipate something special from you). A great subject line would be, “Your HD infographic inside,” or “New ebook awaits you.”
Communicating urgency and scarcity
It’s not Fall yet, but let’s fast forward to the day after Thanksgiving. Ring any bells? Think about why people are so invested and eager to stand in line during Black Friday. A large part of it psychologists attribute to psychology. The other part is the sense of urgency Black Friday cultivates.
Massively discounted items available for a very limited time… If you’re after accumulating savings, this giant sales event is your best bet.
It’s not far-fetched to say that this is a huge part of running your email campaigns, and writing your email subject line. Communicating a sense of scarcity and promptness helps compel readers to click and act immediately. Even moreso when it’s phrased strategically yet creatively. However, keep in mind to play the “urgency” card during appropriate holidays, or special company celebrations — like anniversaries.
Make your recipients feel special
Never underestimate the impact of exclusivity on us humans. The rarer or more unattainable something is, the more value it has. It’s a classic case of people wanting something they can’t easily have. Creating elusive value lights the fire of curiosity in your audience, and makes them want to know exactly what they’re missing out on.
Making your target audiences feel like they belong in some special club creates a sense of belongingness in them. In turn, you can foster loyalty and even compel them to convert on your emails far easier in the future.
The right words and right subject lines can have the desired effect on your audiences:
● “Our present for you”
● “An exclusive invite for our trusted partners”
● “To our special customers”
Compelling questions
Questions work to draw readers in. In terms of writing, asking questions is a good method of keeping your audiences engaged. It piques their curiosity. For subject lines, you can try: “Do you know what you’re doing wrong in your Instagram marketing?” or “Are you committing the following PPC mistakes?”
Timing is everything
Timing is everything in the case of email marketing. An email sent at the right time with the perfect and effective email subject line makes a huge significance.
For instance, say you send an email with a subject line that says, “Oh no! Your subscription is about to expire.” You sent this a week before a recipient was going to renew his subscription. There’s a considerable chance that your email’s going to be opened.
There is no exact time and day to send your game changing email campaign; because, every campaign differs from company to company. There is no one-size fits all, and the best way to determine the right time to send an email is via research and analysis.
But based on a lot studies from authoritative sites like CoSchedule and HubSpot, the best days to send emails are during Tuesdays and Thursdays. The best times are somewhere around 10-11 in the morning.
A/B test your subject lines
Speaking of getting your timing right, the most effective way of getting around to doing it correctly is to do some A/B testing. Every tip and practice we discuss in this article is a helpful place to begin. But to completely figure out how to write effective email subject lines to your specific audience, you need to do some experimentation.
5 Underrated Ways of Writing an Effective Email Subject Line
With these tried and true tips in mind, it’s time to learn some other tips on writing an effective email subject line. Learn how to stand out from the rest of the inbox clutter.
#1 Make it personal
Take for instance you’re walking down a crowded street, and then you hear someone call your name. Wouldn’t you turn around and acknowledge the person who called your name?
Personalization in an email subject line adds a feeling of familiarity — a link of sorts. In fact, Hubspot’s studies revealed that subject lines with the first name of the recipient have higher CTR rates than those that don’t.
You can take your personalization tactics a step upwards, and offer suggestions based on someone’s local address.
Take this summer retail store in Virginia Beach, for instance. Sunsations has seven locations lining the Oceanfront of VA Beach. Each retail store is positioned on different streets. If they want to send email campaigns, they can refer a customer to a store closest to the hotel they’re staying at.
#2 Be shocking (in a good way)
The catchiest of email subject lines to me always include my name, and something shocking — in a good way, of course.
The tactic is a combination of personalization and creating a sense of urgency through conveying something negative about how you’re doing things (case in point the image above), or a strategy where you’re apparently lacking.
#3 Humorous subject lines
Research reveals that humans can’t go through one day without chuckling at least once. The natural tendency of people is to draw towards pleasure and avoid pain. As long as your humor’s good and safe, it’s hard for just about anybody to resist a good joke or a pun.
Some great examples of these humorous subject lines gathered by HubSpot include:
● “C’mon, it’s Friday and you’re killing time anyway”
● “Is it too late now to say sorry?”
#4 Clickbait + False promises = NO
Being shocking in your email subject lines technically classify as clickbait. But doing clickbait without following up on the implied promise you made is a huge no!
Moreover, your email subject line is basically you making a promise to your recipients that you would give them something. They expect you to commit to that promise.
Aside from annoying your audience, you’re actually building an unsavory reputation for the very brand you’re trying to promote. They probably won’t even open anymore of your emails. Worst case scenario is that they unsubscribe to you.
#5 Use simple questions once in a while
Sometimes, nothing works better than a good old polite question. No magic, no big reveal; it’s as simple as saying, “Hi, need to ask you something about ____ please.”
The Bonus
It’s not entirely for email subject lines, but as an added bonus, it’s a good idea to include multimedia content into your message body as well — especially videos and GIFs. They make for great introductions, and appeal mostly to humor.
In fact, adding videos to your emails increase CTRs by 300%. A study of 1 billion emails revealed that videos in emails see click through rates that are 96% higher than emails that don’t have videos. And the percentage of emails that have GIFs rose from 5.4% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2016.
The Takeaway
An effective email subject line communicates urgency, cultivates curiosity, holds cool and awesome stories, and respects relevance as well as timeliness. And aside from the tried and true tricks of writing great subject lines, there’s absolutely no harm in implementing the following:
● Making it personal
● Be shocking (in a good way)
● Being humorous with email subject lines
● Avoid clickbaiting if you can’t deliver on your promise
● Using simple questions once in a while
The value you place in creating an effective email subject line pays off in opens, click throughs, and conversions. Remember, the subject line is your email’s headline and promise deliverer. So make it great! Make it downright clickable.
