EMAIL SUBJECT LINES TO BOOST OPEN RATES

hen it comes to e-mail marketing, it can be rewarding to put together a strong newsletter that gets the open rates you hoped and the response you anticipated. On the flip side, sometimes a newsletter goes out and gets ignored.

What’s the difference? While many factors play a role in the success of an email newsletter, there is one thing that acts as a barrier to entry: the subject line.

With email inboxes constantly flooded with new messages, its vital to have a strong subject line that is likely to get people to click, open and read the email. Individuals are scanning inboxes checking for urgent, unique, intriguing and important messages before deciding which to click - and if the subject line doesn’t tick a certain box, it may not be successful.

One tool every marketer has to assess the effectiveness of an email subject line is called A/B testing. This involves using two variations of subject lines, sending to a percentage of your email subscribers to determine which is most effective. Over time, you can use this method to also assess which techniques will improve the likelihood of your subject line being effective.

We’ve compile a list of these techniques from various e-mail newsletter platforms, who’ve each done their own research about what is most effective. Browse these ideas below - and we bet you can even spot some trends among the different methods.

Constant Contact offers 12 tips to create good email subject lines, and here’s a few that stood out to us:

Short subject lines: They suggest 40 characters (about 5 to 7 words) in order to make it easy to comprehend for those who are scanning an inbox.

Non-salesy: Overly promotional language is bound to get your newsletter flagged as spam.

Ask intriguing questions: A question feels incomplete, and the right question will get a reader to click open for an answer.

Add a sense of urgency: Giving readers a deadline or now-or-never type feel will make them click rather than miss out on whatever is inside.

Mailchimp studied about 24 billion delivered emails based on a variety of criteria, and offered 7 tips for catchy subject lines. Here’s a few:

Personalization is effective: Setting up your subject line to say something like: Congratulations, |FNAME| |LNAME| - actually does boost the odds they’ll read.

Urgency is important: When people feel like something needs immediate attention, they can’t let it sit unopened in their inbox.

Capitalization Makes a Difference: There was a slightly higher open rate for subject lines that capitalized the first letter of each proper noun, like a newspaper headline.

Salesforce calls the subject line the “most Important 50 Characters of Your Email, and offers many tips, among them these:

Personalize it: Again, getting that individual’s name in their subject line let’s them know you who are directly talking to - and they’re more likely to open.

Sense of urgency: Make something seem time sensitive so they don’t skip over the email when scanning their inbox.

Include a call to action: This works because it makes it obvious what the point of the email is, for example: Click to see our newest product OR See how easy it is to save money on this machine.

Conduct A/B testing: Your audience is unique, so testing what works specifically with your list is important - too.

Hubspot offers 20 tried-and-true tips to boost newsletter engagement. Here’s some of our favorites:

Urgency: Its starting to feel urgent that all of these articles are calling this out. The point is - some sort of time element makes your subject line more clickable.

Personalization: Hey, hey - you there … I mean, what;s your name? That’s right, we’ve also heard this one before - customize your subject line to speak directly to the recipient.

Timeliness: This speaks more to the relevancy of the topic based on current trends, news stories, social issues, etc.

Curiosity / sense of mystery: Curiosity killed the cat - but in this case, it got them to open the email.

Did you know? We are a HubSpot partner agency and can manage your marketing strategy from top to bottom. Contact us for a free consultation.

‍