Email marketing is a means of digital marketing that can never get outdated. Millions of businesses around the world use emails and newsletters to keep their audience and customers reminded about their brand.
A good marketer is always on the lookout for ideas to improve their marketing strategies. The same applies when it comes to direct mail marketing, or in digital terms, email marketing. One factor that really makes a huge difference in whether or not your email campaigns will be successful is your marketing email subject lines.
Writing email subject lines is often overlooked and underestimated. Smart businessmen and marketers know that if your subject line is not catchy enough, the customer won’t be enticed enough to even open the email. However good your newsletter or marketing email is, if it is not even opened, it won’t have any impact on the customer’s buying decision.
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Hence, it is utterly important for you to know how to write good marketing email subject lines. Luckily for you, this post is dedicated to that. In this post, we will be discussing tips for creating the best email subject lines, and also be giving you a few email subject line examples that you can imitate or modify a bit and use.
In its simplest terms, the best email subject lines are those that make your email irresistible for being opened. They convey something to the customer that they simply cannot avoid opening it and checking out what’s inside. It is not easy to come up with such a subject line, but it’s not too hard either. You just need to be able to put yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes and see things from their perspective.
Ask yourself these questions.
- Is your subject line triggering any kind of curiosity in the reader’s mind?
- Is your subject line stating a problem that the reader can relate to?
- Is your subject line short and clear?
- Does your subject line have a friendly tone?
For you to write awesome marketing email subject lines, your answer to each of the questions listed above should be ‘Yes’. Now let’s discuss how to actually implement this.
12 Tips for Creating the Best Email Subject Lines
Here are 12 tips that will help you in writing email subject lines that would make your email campaigns rock.
1. Write the Subject Line Before Drafting the Email
Oftentimes, you would think too hard to prepare the first draft of your marketing email that you plan to send to a large group of subscribers. By the time you get to writing the subject line, you’d be too exhausted and won’t be able to give it much attention. This is not a good strategy.
The best way is to write your marketing email subject lines first, and then prepare the email body. The reason is it won’t matter what’s in your email body if nobody even opens it. You need to spend most of your effort and focus on writing email subject lines first for all your email campaigns. This will also help you avoid sending emails with a blank subject line. Such emails have a very slim chance of being opened and read.
2. Keep the Subject Line Short and Precise
You do know that your readers can only view a certain number of characters of your subject line before actually opening the email. This is why lengthy marketing email subject lines are a waste of effort. They cannot be viewed by your email recipients until and unless they open the email.
Since the whole point of your subject line is to entice the recipient to open the mail, it is not a good idea to make it so long that it doesn’t even fit in the limited subject line space in the recipient’s inbox. Keep it short, precise, and clear. Let it grab the recipient’s attention and make them want to see what’s inside.
3. Arrange the Sequence of Words Wisely
The best strategy is to place the most important and relevant words in the beginning. Depending on the device your recipients usually open their inbox from, the last few words in your marketing email subject lines might always get hidden or cropped, even if you keep the line short. You really wouldn’t want the compelling details to be cut off.
That's why you should say the most important words first so that they appear right next to the email sender’s name. That’s the place where your recipients’ eyes would go first before they decide to open the mail or not, or worse still, mark it as spam.
4. Eliminate Any Filter Words
Marketing email subject lines need to fit in the precious little space that every recipient’s inbox has. To make this easy for you, try to filter out or eliminate any unnecessary words. Examples of such words could be ‘Hello’, ‘Thanks’, or even ‘Nice to meet you’. You can say all the greetings and express all you want inside the email, but writing this stuff in the subject line is just a waste of space.
5. Be Specific About the Topic of Your Email
Your marketing email subject lines should always convey what exactly the email is about. Your audience must be able to know, at least roughly, what’s in the mail by reading its subject line. Vague or incomplete subject lines do not trigger any curiosity, and thus have a small chance of being opened. Be specific and introduce your topic in writing email subject lines. Don’t be so general that the recipients take it as just another spam email by another marketer.
6. Keep it Focused
Focus your marketing email subject lines on one specific desired action. Do not try to get your audience to take too many steps or actions at a time. The primary goal of any subject line should be to incentivize the reader to open the mail. Any further desired actions can be spoken about inside the mail. Keep your subject lines focused on just one action.
Image taken from Strikingly
For example, if you are offering a giveaway in the marketing email, just mention what the giveaway is in the subject line. Other details like how to participate in the contest to win the giveaway, and how it will be delivered to the winners, can be explained in the email body.
7. Use Logical and Relevant Keywords
The best email subject lines are those that include the logical and relevant keywords for your niche. Keywords are the words or phrases that your target audience uses when searching in search engines, like Google, for the things they need information on. This means these are the phrases that they want to see in the subject lines of emails as well as search results to make them want to click and read what’s inside.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
8. Indicate If You Prefer a Response
If you need a response to your email, indicate that in your subject line. You can do that by including phrases like ‘Please read’, ‘FYI’, or ‘Join our campaign’. Using such phrases in your marketing email subject lines might even make the recipient consider the email as urgent if they really want to take the action that you are asking them to take.
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9. Set a Deadline for a Response
Mentioning a deadline for a response in the subject line of emails can also work in your favor. Customer reward programs often come with a set timeline and deadline, and these need to be conveyed to the customers clearly. You can mention these in your marketing email subject lines very precisely by using a word or two, such as ‘ASAP’, ‘today’, or ‘within days’.
10. Highlight the Value You Are Offering
Marketing emails are usually received as cold emails. Therefore, it is necessary that you highlight the value that you are offering through your product or service in writing email subject lines. Whether you’re providing a discount, a customized service, or an opportunity to participate in a contest, make it clear in the email’s subject line what’s in it for the recipient.
11. Personalize the Subject Line
The best email subject lines are those that give a personal feel. A common way of doing this is by mentioning the recipient’s name in the subject line. This makes the recipient feel special, as they feel like you put in the effort to remember and mention your name. Of course, you wouldn’t actually remember each of your email subscriber’s names, or manually key in their names in each email that you send out.
You can include the recipient’s name by simply using an email management tool, and sending personalized emails to hundreds of people in one shot. Hence, this is easy to implement.
12. Use Strikingly as Your Website and Email Management Tool
Image taken from Strikingly
The extent of effectiveness of your email campaigns also partially depends on the platform you use to build your website. If you create your website on Strikingly, you’ll not only get 24/7 live chat customer support but also be able to use our fabulous email feature in our VIP and Audience Plans. With this feature, you can draft and send a personalized email to a selected contact. Your email audience can be accessed from the Strikingly dashboard that you’ll get access to as soon as you sign up for your free Strikingly account. You’ll also get to keep your contact history record with all your past email recipients.
Many of our users are running successful email campaigns through their websites built on Strikingly. Our tools are simple and convenient for anyone to use. You can also begin your journey of running a professional website by registering on our platform and creating your web pages. Don’t forget to add a subscription form, so you can build an email list and run email campaigns. Now that you know how to create good marketing email subject lines, you can make better use of your subscribers list and get ahead in the competition in your respective industry.
