The Do's and Don'ts of Email Subject Lines

An effective email subject lines is the key to increase open rates and potential click through rates. No matter whether you are sending an official mail, monthly news letter or a daily digest; effective subject lines will compel your subscribers to open your mail.

Even though subject lines are very important in email marketing but still it is one of the major obstacles that needs to be overcome. Depending on what it includes, the subscriber will decide whether to open mail or not. Also there is no secret to writing an email subject line that guarantee you an improved open rate and click through.

So there are few tricks and tips that will help to increase the open rates and other things to avoid. Let’s have a look over with these Do’s and Don’ts to get an idea of writing an effective subject line.  

The Parameters You Must Include:

• Keep It Simple and Specific

Whenever people read your subject lines, it should be simple and specific about your message and why it’s relevant to them. Lengthy and irrelevant subject lines may cause frustration for your recipients and lead them to ignore or delete your mail. According to analysis, subject lines that had between 28 to 39 characters had the highest open rates.

• Use the Recipient Name or Location

Add a personal touch to your subject line by including recipient name or location. Personalized subject line makes your subscriber more likely to open your mail. In many surveys it has been proved that personalized promotional mailings have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher unique click rates than non-personalized mailings.   

• Phrase Subject Line as a Question

One of the best ways to grab your subscriber attention is to ask a question in your subject line. A recent study by Mailchimp has found that subject line phrased as questions perform better than subject line that were phrased as normal statements.

• Make Sure to Address Your Subscribers

Don’t confuse your subscribers when your mail shows up in their inbox. Include your address - means your brand name or product name in brackets at the beginning of the subject line.

• Include a Call to Action

It’s very important to inform your subscribers what their next step should be. If not, they will just read subject line without understanding further action is required from their part.

The Points You Must Avoid:

• Usage of Special Characters in Subject line

This trick may increase the click rates, but it occasionally hit into the spam folders. Another recent trend is using tons of emoticons in subject line, this may increase open rates but it do not affects much on click rates.

• Being Too Mysterious

Of course, you want to intrigue your subscribers, but don’t be vague in a subject line. Give a clear picture of why you’re sending mail to them before they open your message. Too much vagueness can lead to ambiguity and ultimately that mail will be dumped to spam folder.

• Include Numbers

Including numbers in the subject line often increase engagement levels and interest. This can also put your email in danger of getting lost in the profusion of “special offers” floating around in cyberspace.  

• Asking for help

Nowadays people have become cautious of this tactic because so many email marketers used it in a scammy way.   

• Being an obvious sales pitch

In these days, being an obvious sales pitch like “Don’t miss this opportunity” will not only appear like white noise to your subscriber, there will be also more chance to reach the spam folders.

Email marketing is all about the information which you want to convey to your customers. So follow these do's and don'ts while writing an effective subject line which will indirectly reflects on open rates and click through rates.