We all know that first impressions are lasting, and most people do judge a book by its cover. The same goes with your email subject lines. Emails are opened based on their subject line all the time, no matter what type of email it is. Your open rates are hinged on having a great subject line so regardless of how small you think it is, subject lines can make or break your email marketing campaign.
In reality, 47% digital of marketers says that they run A/B testing to test different subject lines and how they affect open rates. This entire purpose of your email marketing campaign is to get people to click through and open your emails; they only way they are going to do that is if they are drawn in and compelled to do so.
If you want to stand out in your customer’s inbox and beat out the competition then your email subject line needs to make a very lasting first impression. One that makes your audience have a sense of urgent need to read what you have to offer.
Not sure if your subject line game is up to scratch? No worries, we’re about to outline the best ways to craft click-worthy subject lines every time.
Read on if you want an increase in open rates and email conversions just from having amazing subject lines.
Table of Contents
5 Best Practices for Writing Click-worthy Subject Lines
Just a few practices you need to be aware of before we get into detail tips for writing really enticing subject lines. These are the essentials of writing compelling subject lines.
1. Creating Urgency
When crafting subject lines, you want to creatively weave in a sense of urgency. You create urgency so that your reader clicks right away. When expressed creatively and strategically urgency compels your reader to know exactly what is in your email. Using power words like now, today, ASAP, and other time words make people feel as if they are going to miss out on what you have to offer. Creating an atmosphere of insistence propels the reader forward to click through.
2. Pique Curiosity
While urgency can grab a reader’s attention and compel them to click; cultivating piquing your reader’s curiosity in a subtly way creates intrigue and has the same effect.
The old adage “curiosity killed the cat” comes to mind but we often forget the rest of it “satisfaction brought it back.”
Entice your readers by playing to our natural inclination for wanting to know more by piquing their curiosity, and then satisfy it by having something brilliant once they venture inside the message.
3. Offer a Benefit
Now that you’ve enticed them to the point of clicking open your email you need to make it worth their while. The meat of your email has to be beneficial for them. What is in for them? What do they get for clicking through? You can use this tactic in the subject line too. Tease them with a benefit so that they click to open your email, lay the bait, and then give them the reward when they open up your email. We all love receiving free things, discounts, and promotions; anything that benefits us. Convey this in your subject line and you will always have click-throughs and higher email conversions.
4. Give it a Personal Touch
Your consumers want to feel special. While consumers don’t mind receiving marketing emails in their inbox, they still want to feel as if you care for them. Do this by using personalisation in your subject lines and your emails. Cater to the individual’s interest and demographics. Know your customer and then cater to their wants and needs with a little personal touch.
5. Be Relevant. Be on Time
Positioning your company and brand as an authority in your industry is crucial to building trust with your audience and boosting your credibility. One reason people have decided to opt-in to your mailing list is to receive information that is relevant, time-sensitive and beneficial. Use trending news topics in your industry in your subject lines to spark curiosity and entice your readers to read on. Everyone loves breaking news. Show your readers that you’re a timely authority in all things related to your industry.
While employing these best practices in making your subject lines click-worthy to remember the main purpose is to grab your reader’s attention, spark their interest, create desire and then push them into action.
Now let’s get into the tips for writing clickable subject lines.
How to Write Attention Grabbing & Clickable Subject Lines
1. Keep it Short. Keep it Simple.
Pro tip: You want to be concise with your email subject lines.
The fact of the matter is long email subject lines are cut off, especially on mobile devices and 77% of emails are opened on mobile devices. So, keep it short and simple.
The recommended length for your subject line should be 50 characters or less in order to be seen in its entirety. If you’re having trouble crafting shorter subject lines that convey would of the best practices we discussed earlier then try eliminating filler words. Keep power words in that pull on your reader’s emotions and convey urgency or sparks curiosity.
Don’t waste time using obvious words like ‘Monthly Newsletter’ or ‘Update’ in your subject lines as these can impact open rates negatively. Employ your best copy here and write something short and sweet that packs a punch and makes your users click.
2. Use Personalised Tokens
Remember when we mentioned personalisation under best practices to use? Well, you want to use those tokens available to you in your email marketing software that you use to add a personal touch to your subject lines. Using personal tokens like name or location helps to build the relationship between you and your customer and fosters a good rapport.
Market Research shows that including personalised names in subject lines had much higher click open rates than emails that didn’t. The bottom line is personalisation will draw your customer to hit that click button because it calls to them.
Another basic tip for personalisation is to always use personal pronouns ‘you’ and ‘your’. This still addresses the customer directly and still feed into the copy writer’s holy grail of showing the client what is in it for them.
3.Use Email Segmentation
This follows personalisation but based on your customer’s interest. While sending an email blast to your entire list can be easy for you, some information may not always be relevant to all of the users on your mailing lists. The key here is to tailor the experience to reach users based on the behaviour you’ve tracked on your site, their interest and what got them to opt-in.
4. Don’t Use ALL CAPS or overuse the Exclamation!!!!!
No one is going to be enticed to click on your email if you have ‘shouty’ capitals as your email subject line. Using ALL CAPS online translates to shouting and no one wants to be yelled at. This will simply put off your audience from opening your email.
The same can be said for using an excessive amount of exclamation marks to show excitement or urgency. Radicati Group conducted a survey and found that 85% of people prefer a subject line with lower case letters. So, keep it simple.
These email tricks aren’t only internet faux pas but they are also considered to be used by Spammers. Therefore, just stick to using the personal touch on your emails, simple and clean language, and be relevant.
5. Craft your Preview Text to be Engaging
Even though preview text isn’t a part of the subject line of your emails, it is still visible and should be given some thought. If you don’t set a specific preview line in your email program then the beginning of your email becomes to automatic preview.
The preview text that appears right next to your subject line or underneath in mobile apps, helps give your reader a sneak peek of your email’s content. So be sure to consider this when writing your emails. If you can set it beforehand and consider it an extension to your subject line. They key is to be engaging and motivate the reader to click on your email.
6. Conduct A/B Testing on your Subject Lines
Use the A/B testing technique to conduct marketing research into which emails work best with your audience/customers. You want to measure customer engagement and response. A/B Testing is great for improving your open rates and your rate of conversion.
To conduct you’re A/B Test start by choosing an area to test, for example, open rates, click-through rate, call-to-action clicks, etc. Next, you will create two emails. Email A and Email B, each email will differ slightly to test which version of the email achieves the best results.
For example, when you wanted to focus a new email campaign on improving the Open Rates of your emails. Focus your A/B Testing on the Subject Lines of your email because the open rate depends solely on the subject line of the email. A great subject line will determine the click/open rate. Craft two subject lines that differ slightly and send each to half of your mailing list. Whichever had the higher click open rate shows what works with your audience. Use this to determine the type of subject lines that work best with your customer base.
Final Thoughts
Your subject line is the first impression your audience gets of your email campaign and in order for it to work it has to grab their attention and compel them to click through. This is a major first step into having email marketing work for you as it should. Your subject lines are a direct link to receiving high email conversions and increased customer engagement so make them click-worthy and enticing.
