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Email Subject Line Best Practices

Knowing all the areas you need to cover in your email newsletter marketing campaign will give you the most value from your work. Once you’ve had a chance to evaluate the focus areas of your email, it’s important to craft an effective subject line. The subject line is almost as important as the content laid out in your email. It gives your customers a quick overview of what type of content is in your email.

An effective subject line will prompt your audience to open your email. It’s important to give your readers a peak at what’s inside through the subject line. Marketing with email is strategic and writing a subject line is tough.

There are some challenges that come with crating an effective subject line. Most email programs only display a certain number of characters (usually between thirty and fifty). This gives you a limited amount of space for your subject line. Aside from space allowance, your subject line needs to be catchy and intriguing – something that will cause your reader to open your email. Keep these things in mind when creating a subject line:

Theme: Most newsletter marketing campaigns are designed around a theme. Your email will most likely stay within a certain theme, which means your subject line should stay within that theme as well.

Value words: Personalize your subject line with valuable keywords. Think of simple words that can be associated with your theme. Value words can tell your readers what’s inside.

Sense of urgency: Use details and descriptions inside your email, within the content. Use the subject line as an opportunity to display the importance of your email (whether through a dated promotion, an exclusive deal, a new product, etc). You can go into depth within the content of your email.

Once you’ve crafted your email marketing newsletter, be sure to run tests. Sample a few different subject lines and email yourself to check what works best. You can see for yourself which subject line will work best for your email.