Here you are! Your business is ready to get the word out about a webinar, keep your customers updated with a newsletter, or invite your contacts to a conference.
All you need is for people to go to your site and register, or sign up or whatever it is. So, you decide to send out an email to let the world know that you are ready to change their lives.
SENT! The email is now in the hands of your current and prospective customers. You watch over the next few days to see how many people are clicking on your email.
{Insert “Price is Right” fail music here} Nothing. No one clicked on it. Why?? The most likely reason is that you didn’t write a good enough email subject line.
With that in mind, here is how to write an email subject line that doesn’t suck.
Use Personalization
People are in love with themselves. That is a core human thing. They love seeing their own name, and an email subject line that includes their name is no different. Marketing agencies everywhere see that including the recipient’s first name in the subject line naturally increases click through rates vs. emails that don’t.
If you don’t have a customer list yet, then you can also try adding personal pronouns such as “you” and “your” so that the email is speaking to them directly.
Short is always better
A majority of people open their email on some sort of mobile device. Gone are the days of only checking email on a PC. So now you have to make sure that your email subject line is fully readable on mobile.
This means that your subject line needs to be less than 50 characters. You don’t want it to be cut off, so this character limit will prevent that.
This is also true from a marketing perspective. How many times have you read something that is SO long that you lost interest and quit reading? That’s what happens when your subject line is too long; people will just quit reading!
Related: An Email Resurrection: Rekindle a Dwindling List
Don’t be afraid to tell
Some companies are afraid to say what is in the email. They fear that the person won’t have a reason to click on it. This could not be farther from the truth! It is more likely that someone WON’T click on an email if they don’t know what it’s about.
You must tell them why they want to open the email... in under 50 characters. Tell them what it is, what does it do, and how does it do it. For example: Instead of “I know a secret…click to find out what it is” this could be changed to “This is a secret discount offer, only for you #name.” Much more appealing because the person knows it is a store discount of some kind that is specific to them.
Related: 7 Event Email Marketing (Insider) Tips
Avoid ALL CAPS like the plague
Here is a little lesson on internet language. When you are speaking to someone through text, it is ingrained in our culture that ALL CAPS IS THE SAME AS YELLING AT SOMEONE!
No one likes to be yelled at, so your email subject lines need to be void of CAPS. Some have argued that having CAPS appear makes your email stand out. It only makes it stand out in the sense of the crazy guy shouting in the middle of the food court because he was charged 20 cents for cheese on his burger.
If you want to avoid having to remember all of these tips, then you could always hire Ironmark! We will handle your email campaigns so you won’t have to worry about bad email subject lines again. Contact us today to see how we can help!
