Crafting the most effective subject lines for Better Open Rates

The Subject Line is the most important factor in the success or failure of an email marketing campaign. Whether you are sending just one email or emailing your entire customer base in a bulk email campaign, your success will depend on the open rate of each email. And the open rate depends on the success of your subject line.

The subject line in an email will decide if your email gets opened or gets trashed. Those 50 characters can make or break your campaign. Hence the subject line in an email has the same importance of a headline in a traditional sales letter.

How long should my subject lines be?

50 characters are best. Most email clients will hide anything beyond this. The first few words have maximum impact; so choose these wisely. These first words should have your keywords in them.

How do I create the most effective subject line?

• It should be believable.
• It should entice the user to click on the email and open it.
• It may refer to a promise you made in the past.
• It may refer to something you created anticipation for.
• An emotional voice may use that emotion in the subject line.
• support the "from" line of your email
• Derive support from the "from" line of your email
• make sure your subject line appeals to your market(or at least part of your market).
• Personalize it to the user's preferences. If you know what he has purchased in the past, don't sell him the same stuff.
• Make it urgent like: 50% off only till midnight tonight.
• Make it actionable : Open now to receive this offer.
• Create a series of emails that have the same subject line with just Part number changed. Keep the conversation going.
• Check with your friends/team mates. If they are intrigued by the subject line enough to want to click on it, your reader may be too.
• Have something to do with their geographic area; this helps. Earlier, the first name used to help, but most readers are innoculated against this by now.
• Newsletters can have issue# and period details such as Issue #345 June 7 2009.

What to avoid in the subject line

• should not be misleading
• avoid SPAM filter redflags like Free, Secks etc. Run it through a content checker.
• a list of SPAM filter redflags can be found here.
• Some say Help, Percent off and Reminder are bad words to have in your subject line.
• Avoid Exclamation marks; it somehow come across as too cheesy.

Deep, your email always seem to have great subject lines, but how do I do it?

2) Watch your junk box. What kind of emails land up here? Are they there because of any particular words in the subject?

3) Imagine you are sitting in his chair, sipping his coffee and opening his Inbox. If you received an email with the subject line you just wrote, would you click it to see whats inside? Remember, you have a 100 other emails waiting for your attention!

which brings us to the next question...

How do I test my subject lines?

Remember that there is no way you can be 100% confident of your email being opened no matter what you put in your subject line. Latest trends show that people are so deluged with email that they can barely read 20% of the emails that they receive.

So how can I improve my open results?

1)Send out multiple emails over a period of days and use different subject lines. Before you start you campaign, create a list of email subject lines and use them individually. Track their results and you will know.
2)Test the positions of your keywords.
3) Though Free is considered SPAM in most content checkers, you can get around it using variations or deliberate mis-spellings.

Further Reading: Email Marketing Subject Line Comparison