3 Steps For Great Email Subject Lines

by Jul 29, 2015Content Strategy

3 Steps For Great Email Subject Lines

by | Jul 29, 2015

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In this day and age, we’re all bombarded with messages – particularly messages of the email variety.  As marketers, we spend so much time writing great content for our audience.  It’s a shame if they don’t even open your email.  How do we get that click-through?

1. Get to the point.

Don’t waste someone’s time.  If you want to create trust and stand out in a crowded inbox, get right to the point of the email.  This should go without saying, but some people still create gimmicky subject lines that are misleading or boring.  Let us say this:  Even if they happen to click your email once, they won’t make that mistake again.  For instance, if you sell handmade greeting cards, don’t ramble on and on about relationships.

Bad:  Improve your relationship with your spouse overnight by following this one step!

Great:  Your love story isn’t stock. Celebrate with unique and personal card designs – now over 40% off!

2.  Make It Helpful

Hopefully you’ve been doing frequent upkeep and maintenance on your email list – keeping it clean and highly targeted.  If so, you probably already have a good idea of what your audience cares about.  Make sure the subject line is highly relevant for your audience.  Make sure that it’s helpful to them, and don’t begin with topics or news that they don’t care about.  Keep in mind that not every single email needs to announce products or services that you offer.  Build a relationship with your audience – throw in fun content, info, or tips for your fans.  Build a tribe around shared interests, rather than an endless stream of offers and promotions.

3.  TEST, TEST, TEST

Resound has a rule for every single email that goes to our subscriber list:  Run a test between two different subject lines.  Every. Single. Time.

This is the only way to increase open rates.  Keep trying new ideas!  Would a shorter subject be better than the longer option for your subscribers?  Test it.  Will your industry buzzwords intrigue your customers or turn them off?  Test it.  When you add the recipient’s name to your subject line, is a personal touch or just plain creepy ?  Test it.

NOTE:  Make sure you use an email marketing software that will allow you to test different subject lines. At Resound we dig Campaign Monitor and Autopilot, but there are plenty of others that enable testing. Also, make sure you use it.

Need more tips for setting up an awesome email campaign for your subscribers?  Don’t have any subscribers?  Hit us up!

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