If your company does any type of email marketing (which it most definitely should – if it’s not, contact us ASAP), subject lines can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
What a lot of email marketers and companies fail to realize is that there are two primary goals with any email:
- Get the reader to open your email.
- Get the reader to click the link inside of your email.
The first part is getting them to open it. Too many times, we hear stories about companies’ email open rates being dreadfully low, yet the content they have inside of the message is gold.
Newsflash: No one’s going to read your gold if you don’t entice them enough to open up your email in the first place.
Use the wrong subject line, and your marketing is dead before it even starts.
So, while there is no formula for writing the perfect subject line, there are different methods and strategies you can implement to get the most bang for your buck.
One of the best strategies we’ve found that works is writing 5 subject lines instead of one.
Write 5 and then read them aloud. This simple test will help you verify that the language is conversational and not robotic (which SO many companies make the mistake of doing).
Pick your 2 or 3 favorites and send the email as a test to your mobile device. Check to see if it all fits in the screen of your mobile device or if anything looks weird.
Then ask yourself, “If I were running around on a busy day, would I open this email? Seriously, would I take time to read this?”
If no, then back to the drawing board.
If yes, winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Yes, this process takes more time and effort, but you will eventually get so good at this process that it will become second nature. Plus, the open rates on your messages will increase, which will motivate you to continue this strategy.
There’s so much more involved in email marketing, headline writing, the format of the text, and the placement of the links, but we figured this was a good place to start. Expect more helpful blogs on email marketing and how to make it the most effective for your business soon.