In the world of email marketing, creating top-quality copy and design within the body of any given email is less than half the battle. After all, the people on your mailing list won’t see any of that hard work if they aren’t opening your messages! Boost open rates and drive engagement by following best practices for subject lines.
Keep It Short
Your message won’t resonate if it’s cut off. Email clients have varying standards when it comes to the cutoff point for your message, but a good rule of thumb is to limit subject lines to a maximum of 40 characters. Those 40 characters include both spaces and any emojis you might wish to add (more on those later!) It’s a good idea to write within an online character counter in order to stay on track.
As an example of what not to do, take a look at this email I received from the financial management tool Mint:
Here, the most important part of the message is lost: when the bill will be automatically paid! I would revise this subject line to both be shorter and serve as a call to action: “Your Feb 10 Payment: View Details >>.”
One more example, from the daily Philadelphia news digest Billy Penn (a great local publication I recommend to all of my fellow Philadelphians!):
The subject lines of Billy Penn’s daily e-blasts always list the day’s three lead stories, and they usually get cut off. The full text of this subject line is “Comcast doubles cheap WiFi speeds; Navigating SEPTA via wheelchair; ‘Building ghosts’ around Philly.” I would suggest revising it to: “Speedy WiFi; SEPTA; ‘Building ghosts’.” It’s okay not to include every detail: all the more reason to entice the recipient to open and read the email.
Use Emojis Strategically
Emojis are fun and eye-catching, and in the context of a subject line, they can serve multiple purposes. Here, Bertucci’s uses the gift and cake emojis to both grab attention and save space:
The message to the customer is short, sweet, and clear: this message, advertising a “Wild Wednesday” promotion, contains both a $15 savings and an offer for free cake. I’m able to ascertain this without opening the email, and the copywriter didn’t have to include the words “gift,” “savings,” or “cake.”
In addition to saving space, emojis can be effective in adding substance. This email from Wawa is a good example:
This email is short, with just one hero image advertising the chain’s offering of curbside pickup when you order using the app. While the email’s main idea easily fits within 40 characters, the car emoji makes the message’s tone more conversational and personable. Emojipedia is a great resource for looking up emojis and copying and pasting them into your document or tool.
Write More Than One, Then Choose Your Favorite
This tip might seem counterintuitive, especially since it doesn’t usually apply to other types of writing: when it comes to articles or blog posts, for example, it makes more sense to edit and revise than it does to create multiple pieces and publish only the best one.
Since an email subject line is such a short piece of copy, however, it’s a more useful and productive exercise to write several than it is to continually make small tweaks to a single subject line. What’s worked best for me is to write between five and seven: it’s an aspirational yet manageable number in most cases. Then, when faced with the options, it’s usually fairly easy to identify the strongest contender.
Let me know if you try out any of these practices—I’d love to hear about how it goes for you or your business. Plus, stay tuned for part 2 of this post, coming next week!
Julia Anderson 