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I’m sure many of us have filled in the email subject lines only at the very end, within fifteen seconds or so, barely giving it any thought, after having spent way longer carefully crafting our email. But subject lines, which we barely put any thought into, are actually some of the most underrated tools in personalized email marketing.
As we all know, first impressions matter and your email newsletter subject lines decide whether or not someone even opens your email. But the main reason why they are important for your campaign is because strong subject lines prompt your recipients to open their email which will then increase your open rates. Open rates are a good measure of how well your campaigns are performing and will help you gauge their success. Therefore, you should always be striving for a good open rate and for that to happen, you should know how to write attention grabbing email subject lines.
Here are some tips to write email subject lines that work.
When you’re creating your newsletter subject lines, you should know who you’re writing to. This allows you to personalize your message. List segmentation takes you one step further, letting you send each segment of people only the relevant information. You can segment your list according to age, gender, interests, location or even buying habits. With list segmentation, you can easily write effective lines.
Your newsletter headline should make it very clear to the recipient what is inside the email. Try to use keywords and action verbs to describe the content. Whether it’s a sale or an event you’re promoting or a new newsletter you’re putting out, you should mention it in the subject line itself. This allows the recipient to prioritize the email without even opening it.
You have very limited space so you should generally try to keep them within 50 characters. Long subject lines tend to overwhelm the recipients so get straight to the point. Mobile devices also cut off the lines if they’re too long so choose only the most important words and keep it concise.
Image courtesy of hooklinedynamic
Newsletter headlines with positive words stand out in the pool of emails accumulating in the recipient’s inbox and compel them to open the email. Using words like organize, update, enrich, invitation, instead of filler words can really do wonders for your open rates.
Call-To-Actions encourage recipients to click on the emails and see what the rush is about. Because they create a sense of urgency, set a deadline, mention when an offer ends, call to action email subject lines increase the odds of recipient opening the email. In a way, they feel compelled to take action and so, click through your emails.
Research by Retention Science found that emails with subject lines that included the recipient’s first name were 16% more likely to be opened than other emails. The thing about personalized emails is that it makes the recipients feel special, as if you’re writing to them personally. For personalized emails, you could even include your email signature. So, why not put in a little more effort and start including your recipient's’ name or their company name to boost your open rates?
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Instead of using promotional and vague language, switch to numbers and data. This is because numbered content is more digestible and the recipient can quantify what they’re getting out of reading something. Numbers also seem more credible than filler words so when you use numbers in your lines, recipients are more likely to fall for it and open the emails.
Alongside the subject lines, make sure you utilize the preview text as well. When you don’t add a preview text, the email automatically pulls sentences out of your email. This could mess up your format and put off some recipients. They look at both the subject lines and preview text to screen your email to decide whether or not they want to open it. So, use your preview text as an extension to generate further interest.
The most effective way to create the best email marketing subject lines is trial and error. What works for one organization may not work for another. Similarly, what works for a certain group of audience may not work for another. So, make sure you always test your headlines before you start sending out marketing emails. You can use the result you’ve gathered to improve your strategies.
If you’ve noticed, many of the email newsletter subject line examples stick to certain formulas. Due to these formulas, that have been tried and proven to be successful, recipients actually open their emails. These formulas have been proven to work and if you use them, you can learn how to subject an email for maximum results.
While you’re busy trying to make your email newsletter subject lines as catchy as possible, you should also keep in mind several mistakes you’d want to avoid making. You do want to increase your open rates, right?
It’s okay, we’re from the same industry. We understand that you’re trying to promote something. But stating it directly in the subject itself is a big no-no. Why bore your recipients before they’ve even had the chance to open their email? Instead, try to tone down the promotional language and be more personal and helpful. Tailor your writing for each individual recipient. Try to use logical keywords that will set up the stage for your promotions which you should save for the body of the email.
No one likes being lied to, whether it be in real life or in email subject lines. While false promises do seem catchy, your recipients will be majorly disappointed when they discover that it was nothing more than a ploy to get them to read your email. Using gimmicks and false promises to get your recipients to open their emails will only end up tarnishing your own brand image. Instead, be truthful and treat them the way you’d want to be treated. At the least, show commitment and stick to the promises you made. I’m sure you can find other ways to grab their attention.
Using all CAPS gives the impression that you’re yelling at the email recipients. After all, we do use CAPS in our normal day to day texts when we are furious at something or someone. Why should it mean anything different in emails? However, this can have a negative impact on your open rates, the opposite of what you want. If your email recipients receive emails with subject lines in all CAPS, they’re most likely to delete your email or mark it as spam. Just because the CAPS key exists doesn’t mean you have to use it. When it comes to writing, make sure you use capitalization cautiously.
By using spammy words, you can activate your recipient’s spam filter which will just directly send your email to spam without your recipient ever opening it. Even if your emails manage to escape such filters, if you’re using spammy words then you can be sure that your recipient won’t ever open the email. If you’re still not sure which words/phrases are considered spammy, here are several examples: free, click below, cheap, urgent, guaranteed, do it today, once in a lifetime among many others.
When writing your email newsletter subject lines, alongside knowing what you should do, formulas you should follow and mistakes you should avoid making, you might also be interested in checking out several tools that are here to make your life easier.
This is a free rating tool that evaluates your email subject line and gives you a score out of 100. It also gives you advice on how you can alter your writing to generate increased open and response rates.
This tool allows you to test your newsletter subject lines to see how they would appear on popular mobile devices and email clients. You will just have to copy and paste the headline for the tool to generate instant previews.
Email Subject Line Grader gives you a score and also tells you what type of a headline it is. It gives you suggestions on what is working and what it not. It also provides information related to the character count and word count.
Image courtesy of emailsubjectlinegrader
This service allows you to check the spam score of your email messages without any hassle. It lets you know what percentage of the message is spam and the reasons behind the deduction. This tool is free to use as well.
Subject Line Testing Tool is an easy to use testing tool which provides accurate results. It uses its proprietary algorithm to predict open rates, conversion rates, as well as the impression it will have on the recipients.
With this analyzer, you simply have to input your newsletter headlines and it will start its analysis. It lets you know how you can balance your word count and character length and pick the most effective words.
This tool is informative and easy to use. You will just have to write your email headline and it will tell you how engaging and captivating your headline is. It gives you an engagement score, an impression score and a quality score.
Image courtesy of headlines.sharethrough
This simple writing editor allows you to improve your writing. It highlights common grammatical errors as well as weak phrases. It gives you suggestions on when you should use passive or active voice and even tells you the reading time and the readability of your text.
Image courtesy of hemingwayapp
Alongside its other usual features, what’s unique about this headline analyzer is that it determines an Emotional Marketing Value (EMV). This will allow you to figure out how your headline can reach out to impact your recipients’ emotions as well as which emotions you should aim for to ensure maximum impact.
With this tool, you can choose which sector your email subject line is geared towards. After you input the keywords, it informs you the number of times that keyword has appeared and lets you know how it ranks compared to the average open rate and click rate.
By now, I think you must have realized just how important a subject line is in getting a recipient to click through on your email and how crafting one engaging sentence is comparable to an art form. But fear not, if you follow our tips and use the tools that we’ve mentioned, you will be well on your way to mastering this valuable skill.
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January 24, 2019