Creating effective subject lines

Often it’s the last thing you do. You’ve spent a lot of timing crafting your email newsletter or campaign and now you just want to get it out. So you come up with a quick subject line or use a standard, “February newsletter” and away it goes. You’re proud of this one and expecting great results.

A few days later you eagerly check your campaign report only to find a disappointingly low open rate. What happened?

A number of factors can influence your open rate, not least of which is just getting your message to the inbox. But that's a subject for another time. Once you've made it to the inbox, one of the first things your recipients see is the subject line.

The subject line can be the dividing line between an open and a delete. Grab my attention with a compelling offer or topic of interest and I'm likely to open your email. Fail at capturing my attention in the second or two that you have my eyeballs, and I'm likely to either ignore your email or send it to my trash folder.

Here are some do's and don'ts when it comes to creating an effective subject line:

• Give your subject line the same passion and attention you give to your content. Think about your recipient and what’s going to entice them to read your email.
• Be honest. Don’t try to trick your recipient into opening your email by promising something you’re not delivering. Lose their trust and you lose their interest.
• Keep it short. Many email applications only display 40-50 characters of the subject line, so if you need to go beyond that, make sure you have the most important information up front.
• Include personalisation. Addressing the recipient by their first name, for example, can add a more personal feel to your communication and increase your response rate.
• Avoid using spammy words and symbols, such as dollar signs and exclamation marks. Check your own junk folder to see what key phrases and words are popular and make sure you avoid them as much as possible.
• Test. Test. Test. Not all of these tips will work for your particular audience. If you have a large database, test different subject lines with different segments of your database to see which one generates the best results. Campaign Master’s A/B Testing feature is a great tool for testing different options.

Following these simple guidelines can help to improve your open rates. But don’t stop there. A better open rate doesn't necessarily mean better results. If more people open your email but don't engage with you any further, are you any better off than before?

The effort you put into crafting the perfect subject line should increase your response rates – click throughs, downloads, orders, etc – not just your open rates. In fact, your open rates could decrease while your overall response rates increase.