Using Subject Lines to Improve Your Email Marketing
Subject lines are among the most important pieces of text for your email marketing efforts. A great subject line can dramatically improve the CTR (Click-Through Rate) for your auto-responder emails. Writing a great subject line is not just an art though, there is a good chunk of science involved. You need to keep a number of things in mind when creating your email subject lines to get your email noticed in people's cluttered inboxes. Let's have a look at how you can create compelling subject lines that are actually difficult not to click on.
Tailor Your Language to Your Audience
When it comes to email marketing, there isn't one correct type of language to use. What works for a certain audience might not work for an email list that targets a different crowd. Do proper research on the industry that you are targeting to find out what your audience is talking about and what kind of language they use. If you can find out how to spark their excitement, you're on the right track.
Make it Personal
Use your subscribers' first name in the subject line to make it sound more personal. Try to segment your email lists if you have enough information about your prospects to do this, and create even more personalized subject lines. For example if you have an email list for people interested in the topic of “cold calling”, you can create a subject line saying: "Hi 'insert name', are your cold calls converting?" Make sure not to creep out your prospects by taking this too far though.
Exclusiveness
Make it sound like you are offering something very exclusive and make sure that people can tell from your subject line exactly what it is that you are offering.
Include a Timeframe
Including a timeframe is a great way to create a sense of urgency with your readers. If you are emailing about an offer that only lasts for 24 hours, make sure to mention this in the first part of your subject line. People are much more inclined to take immediate action if they know that they only have a limited amount of time to take the action.
Keep it Short
Subject lines get cut off by email apps if they're too long, so there's no point in creating very long subject lines. Especially because a lot of people will be opening your emails on a smartphone, where subject lines get cut off at even shorter lengths. Keep it under 50 characters to make sure that your entire subject line can be read.
Avoid Using Words That Trigger Spam Filters
Spammers often use words that have been proven to get better open rates, such as “Cash,” “Save,” “Free,” etc. These words can trigger email provider spam filters. This doesn't mean you always have to avoid these words though. Spam filters look at more than just these trigger words to determine if an email is likely to be spam. There are some online tools that can help you determine if your subject line has a high chance of being intercepted by spam filters.
Crafting subject lines for your email marketing campaign should always be part of a well thought out process. Keeping above tips in mind can help you create some killer subject lines that will improve your open rates.
The author, Zane Schwarzlose, is a Search Engine Specialist at Fahrenheit Marketing in Austin, Texas. Zane usually writes boring subject lines in his emails, unfortunately.
The author, Zane Schwarzlose, is a Search Engine Specialist at Fahrenheit Marketing in Austin, Texas. Zane usually writes boring subject lines in his emails, unfortunately.
