Crafting a compelling email subject line can be tricky, but it’s an essential skill that can set a successful email campaign apart from those that are mediocre. After all, if emails don’t have catchy subject lines, potential clients and customers are less likely to interact with them when in their inbox. And if your customers aren’t interacting with your emails, then you aren’t making sales or conversions. In this post, our email marketing experts will share actionable advice and valuable email subject line tips to help take your email campaigns to the next level. Use these tips and tricks to boost your open rate, increase conversions, and create a more active subscriber base.
What Is the Subject Line In Email?
When a user opens their inbox (commonly through services such as Gmail, Yahoo, or another provider) to check their email, they’re typically greeted by three things—the subject line (usually bolded, font and center), the email preview, and the sender’s name. While it may seem insignificant, the subject line is crucial as it sets the tone for your entire message, and determines if it even gets noticed among the flood of emails in a user’s inbox!
Email Subject Line Best Practices
From using action-oriented language to avoiding spam pitfalls, these recommendations from our team of digital marketing experts will improve your open rates and ultimately lead to more successful interactions with your audience.
- Keep it short and sweet. Because email subject lines and previews can get cut off on mobile devices, it’s important to keep your subject lines as short as possible. In fact, email subject lines typically shouldn’t be any longer than 9 words, or 60 characters.
- Personalize it using merge tags. A merge tag is a snippet of code placed into the subject line or body of an email that is used to personalize your message. Merge tags for names, phone numbers, and other user data can be added using your mail delivery service. If you’re a Mailchimp user, this tutorial is a great introduction to email merge tags and how to best utilize them.
- Limit punctuation. Believe it or not, using too many punctuation marks (commas, periods, question marks, other special characters) can get your email flagged for spam. Try not to use more than three punctuation marks.
- Don’t use more than one emoji. Emojis ARE a great way to draw attention to your email—however there should only be one emoji per subject line. Additionally, you should not use emojis in places where it hinders subject line language. Remember that the whole goal is to deliver your message as clearly and concisely as possible.
- Don’t use “spammy” words. Too much punctuation can make you appear “spammy” — and so can the use of certain words themselves! Try to avoid phrases such as “buy” “bargain” “get paid” “free” or “cash” in your subject lines to best bypass the spam filters and increase inbox deliverability.
- Send a test email. Before sending your email out to your subscribers, send a test message to yourself to make sure that everything reads exactly as you wanted it to. This is also a great time to test and see if any wording is cut off on mobile devices and fix it if so.
Contact Hometown Media For Help With Digital Media Campaigns
While the tips discussed in this post will help ensure that more of your email messages get opened and read by your audience, it can still take years of practice to craft effective subject lines. If you need additional help crafting an ideal email subject line, don’t hesitate to contact Hometown Media’s digital marketing experts. Our dedicated team of experts have the experience and knowledge to get your emails the attention they deserve. Contact Hometown Media today for help with your next email marketing campaign!