Did you know that sender’s name and subject line are two of the most important factors that determine the opening rate of an email marketing campaign? Well, writing a captivating subject line is a sure way to compel your recipient to open your email and then engage with your email to achieve the results you desire by sending the email.
A subject line is a quick and short way to grab your recipient’s attention within a few seconds. That is why you need to put in much effort to make sure your email subject line leaves an impactful first impression whenever your email is received.
And, in this post, we will share with you all the tips to help you write a compelling subject line.
What makes a good email subject line?
Is there a magic formula for successful email marketing subject lines? Honestly, no. But there are guidelines to boost the click-through rate (CTR) and avoid emails staying unread:
70 characters or less
With the rise of mobile readership, “short and sweet” is more desired than ever. People check emails on their phones during the commute, which means less real estate for subject lines. Restrict the character count to avoid copy being cut off.
Personalization and the 2nd person (you)
We resonate with our names in a text. And the same goes with “you” because it’s conversational and addresses us directly. So, set up personalization tags and write in the 2nd person.
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Write multiple subject lines and A/B test
To prove the best subject line, test its engagement. Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) to set up A/B tests for your emails and pick the one with the highest CTR.
Include a call-to-action (CTA)
Muster a response from the reader with a verb, takeaway, or intriguing fact in the subject line. Avoid spammy, overused phrases such as “buy now” and remember—emails that don’t inspire action are usually ignored.
Know your audience
As is true in all communication, you won’t drive impact if you don’t know the lingo and worldview of your audience. Buyer personas, demographics, psychographics, and surveys help you address your public in subject lines.
Preview your emails
To make sure your subject line and the body text are what you expect, preview them before sending en masse. It’s also a good idea to send yourself a test email and view it on desktop and mobile.
Email subject lines best practices
Writing email subject lines is one of the toughest parts of email marketing. That’s because after all the work invested in the body text and design, you need to convince your target to open the email. In this section we will list 8 best practices for email subject lines to Improve your email open rates:
1. Trigger The Recipient’s FOMO
For those of you that might not know what FOMO is, FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. And triggering a recipient’s FOMO simply means creating some sense of urgency. And, by doing this, you will make the recipient feel as though they are being left out of a fleeting deal or a fleeting piece of information, which will trigger them to act urgently. Many marketers use this trick to make recipients feel anxious and curious.
So, now, the question is: how do you create this FOMO?
It is simple; you want to make sure your subject line highlights a discount, sale, or event your company is running. So, for example, assuming your company sells jewelry, you can write your subject line as “This is your last chance to grab your favorite jewelry at a 30% discount.” Or, if it is an event your company is hosting, you can write something like this “Be part of the first 50 people to be admitted to our event for free.” Writing subject lines like these automatically makes the person feel like they will be left out of something special if they do not take instant action.
Here is a detailed guide to help you create FOMO in your email campaigns. It is important to note that you cannot use FOMO in every email campaign, remember only to use FOMO when you are offering a sale and hosting an event.
2. Personalize Your Subject Lines
Many email marketers make common mistakes in sending generic emails out to their email recipients and expecting them to work. Even though sending out an email with a generic subject line might work, personalizing your emails subject lines will increase the open rate of your email marketing campaign by 26%.
By personalizing your subject line, I mean simply adding the recipient’s name to the email. And doing this can be powerful if combined with any of the tips we discuss in this article. For example, instead of just writing, “This is your last chance to grab some jewelry at a 30% discount.” You can also write, “Conor, this is your last chance to grab some jewelry at a 30% discount”.
We all love it when someone calls us by our name, so, doing this, you make the recipient feel special because they feel like the email was actually intended for them, and just not for everyone. So, they are more likely to open your email.
3. Trigger Their Curiosity
Yes, another way to make sure you write a compelling subject is to trigger the recipient’s curiosity. It means you want to provide the user with the insight they do not know about. This can be achieved by asking a question with statistics they do not know about– a typical example is how we wrote the intro of this article. Alternatively, you can go straight to the point and provide your recipients with some tips.
You want to make sure your subject line grabs the recipient’s attention by leaving a loop in the subject line that triggers the user’s curiosity to open your email. Also, you want to ensure that you satisfy their curiosity in the body of the email to avoid click-baiting, and then make sure that the recipient anticipates your email next time.
Some examples of subject lines that can trigger the recipient’s curiosity include: “Did you call us?” With this, the recipient will wonder if they really called you, and then they will be intrigued to find out what you have to say. Another example is “You have been doing your marketing all wrong” This will make the recipient curious as to how what it is they are doing wrong.
Well, according to Professor George Loewenstein, there are five ways to trigger the curiosity of someone. These include:
- Asking questions
- Unfinished stories
- Making controversial or unexpected statements
- Make the person feel as though you have a piece of information they do not have
- Make the person feel as if they have certain info they have forgotten.
Details of utilizing these steps are highlighted in his book: The Psychology Of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation.
So, you want to make sure that you integrate and leverage two or more of these factors when writing your email subject line to make sure that you grab the attention of the recipient immediately.
4. Try A/B Split Testing
Split testing is something many small businesses do not do because most people feel it is time-consuming. However, if you can split test your subject lines, you can easily detect what subject line works and what subject line doesn’t work. What split testing means is that you are deploying two or more sets of emails with different subject lines to your recipients. The aim is to easily detect the most effective subject line or email marketing campaign based on opening or conversion rates.
You can never determine the effectiveness of one subject over the other without actually testing them. So, you want to come up with a list of 3 to 5 subject lines you want to try and then leverage the A/B split testing feature to what subject line works.
This makes A/B split testing one of the most effective ways to easily test and compare two or more subject lines among two groups of people to see which of the subject lines performed better than the other. The results gotten from the split test makes it easy for you to know how to tweak the other subject line that didn’t perform well to make it more compelling.
Most email marketing software enables you to perform A/B split testing easily, so it shouldn’t be a problem. If you are looking to purchase your first email marketing software, this list should provide you with software that offers a/b split testing.
In addition, to split testing, you want to make sure that you segment your recipients. This is because each person is different, and each of your prospects will react differently to certain subject lines than others. And by segmenting your audience, you can send relevant emails with highly-targeted subject lines to the audience. Therefore, you can send specific subject lines to specific segments based on their behavioral pattern by segmenting your audience.
5. Keep Them Under 10 Words
You want to make sure that your email subject line is so straightforward, and there is no better way to do this than to keep your subject line under ten words. Keeping your subject line short makes it easy for your recipient to read the subject line within a glance. By this glance, the recipient can decide whether they will open your email or not.
Also, keeping them under ten words makes it possible for the whole subject line to appear on smartphones and smartwatches. Most people tend to use their phones to check emails. Therefore, you want to ensure that your subject line fully appears on the phone or smartwatch screen and isn’t truncated because it is too long. Even applications like Outlook and Gmail give the recipient a little preview of the subject line; therefore, you want to ensure that your entire subject line is captured in that little preview without getting cut off.
Also, some studies have been able to correlate the open rate of an email marketing campaign to the length of a subject line. It was shown that the shorter your subject line is (under 70 characters), the higher your opening rate.
6. Avoid Sales Lingua
Yes, we know you are trying to get your recipients to take a certain action to benefit your business. However, you will need to slow down a bit and do not come off as a salesperson. This is because it creates an impression that you just want to take from them. To avoid this, you want to make sure that your subject line communicates value to the recipient. You want it to seem as though you are giving to the recipient rather than taking from them.
A great way to discover this is to put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and then try to figure out what value you can provide them. Generally, you want your subject line to seem as though you are offering the recipient something. So, for example, instead of writing “Come and purchase my software,” you can write, “Conor, we are offering you $50 off your purchase of my software.” With this example, the value provided is that you have the recipient save money by offering them a discount.
So, assuming you are a real estate company, one of the ways you can write your subject lines can be: “Hey Conor, here are five ways to finance your mortgage with low-interest rates.” Then, later on in the body of the email, you can then sell your product or service to the recipient. To enhance your outreach, consider attaching examples of success stories or real estate brochure samples that highlight the benefits of your services.
7. Send Them At The Right Time
Finally, you want to make sure that you deploy your emails at an ideal time the recipient is most likely to open your message. You want to make sure that your email should be on the top 10 list when the recipient opens their email provider. This is important because the average person receives 121 business emails each day. So, if you do not send the email at an ideal time when the prospect is most likely to read your email, you risk the chances of having your email being pushed to the bottom.
This can be a great disadvantage because no matter how precise and intriguing your email subject line is, if it doesn’t appear on the first page of the recipient email, then there is a higher chance that your email might be skipped. And this can be a waste of time. Therefore you should make sure that you send your emails with the best subject lines between 6 am and 10 am. This is because during these periods, people have started their day, and the first thing they will open before working out, or while eating some cereal, or before actually starting work is their email. Also, you want to send them between 6 pm to 9 pm. This is because most people have just ended their day, and they are just relaxing, and they will check their emails before going to bed or while on the way home.
So, to ensure that you do not waste your time writing catchy subject lines and email campaigns that wouldn’t get read, you want to make sure that you send the emails at appropriate times.
8. Avoid Spams
The last thing you want is to waste your time composing an email and a subject line only for it to end up in the recipient’s spam box. As you already know, the spam box is the least visited section of an email. Therefore, you want to make sure that you put in all the effort to prevent your emails campaigns from ending in the spam box.
The truth is that each day, these spam rules become tighter, and this increases the chance of having your email moved to the spam box or junk folder. However, here are a few tips to prevent that.
- Ensure that the people you are emailing willingly subscribe to your email list. Do not buy email contacts and start sending emails to them.
- Avoid using spam keywords.
- Always give them an option to opt-out of your email list.
- Check your IP and make sure it isn’t blacklisted.
- Do not send spammy emails.
Email subject line generators
Whenever you’ve got writer’s block and need a high-converting subject line ASAP, generators are a handy tool.
Keep in mind these tools usually throw your keyword into a template, so editing is needed. Even so, a subject line generator provides good ideas and a place to start when you feel stumped.
Here are four tools to create email subject lines:
1. ActiveCampaign
With this generator, simply pick a category for your keyword (Benefit, Topic, or Pain Point) and you’ll receive four suggestions.
As a test, we got the following suggestions for the keyword “decrease churn” in the Benefit category:
- The secret to decrease churn
- The ultimate guide to decrease churn
- What you should know about decrease churn
- A toast to decrease churn
We like the last one best (very intriguing).
2. Reply.io
This tool is similar to the previous one: Pick a category (Benefit, Problem, Personalized, Covid-19) and type your keyword.
We’ll use the same example (decrease churn) and the Benefit category to test this tool out. Here are the results:
- How to take the headache out of decrease churn
- For when you need decrease churn
- The lazy person’s way to decrease churn
- The fastest way to decrease churn
- Answered: your most burning questions about decrease churn
- A little known way to decrease churn
Like last time, we believe the final cold email churned out by Reply.io is the best.
3. Portent
This tool is different from the others as it is a title generator rather than a subject line creator. Even so, it is a valuable asset for quick inspiration.
Simply type in your keyword (yes, we used “decrease churn” again) and click on “Generate idea”. Here are the results of our test:
- Why decrease churns are cuter than a kitten
- 18 things Spock would say about decrease churn
- 9 ways decrease churn can increase your productivity
- How decrease churns are the new hotness
As you can see, some ideas are nonsensical. But even from the absurd emerges reason (or at the very least engaging subject lines). We would love to know 18 things Spock has to say about decreasing churn.
4. Copywriting Course
Rather than a generator, this is a list of over 100 subject lines with blanks to fill in with keywords. The list never changes, so if you’d rather paste the list onto a doc (or even print it out), you can.
Here are what the first five examples provide with “decrease churn” as a keyword:
- Decrease churn changed my life forever.
- The first time I heard about decrease churn it changed everything.
- I never knew the impact decrease churn would have on me.
- The best thing about decrease churn was the way it changed my life.
- When I got good at decrease churn it changed my life.
You’ll probably trim down most examples for it to work in email marketing, but some handy inspiration nevertheless. We like the third one best.
Email subject lines examples & templates
Email subject lines are a critical part of any marketing or sales email strategy, as they are the first touchpoint to catch a reader’s attention and encourage them to open the email. Crafting effective subject lines can be challenging, especially when trying to balance engagement with authenticity.
This section provides a variety of subject line templates and examples for different scenarios, including email marketing campaigns, sales outreach, email cadences, and funny-based lines.
Whether aiming to drive conversions or nurture leads, these subject lines are designed to resonate with recipients and support your campaign objectives while avoiding common spam triggers.
Subject lines for email marketing
For email marketing, the goal is to drive action for a campaign. So, the best subject lines for email marketing entice the reader to perform a certain action after opening the email.
For example, imagine you are a Spanish teacher and you have a list of 100 leads that downloaded a “Spanish Basics” eBook. Your goal now is to enroll them in your Beginners course, so you send the following email:
[Name], enroll in the Spanish Beginners course
This subject line is fine, but not exceptional. That’s because it doesn’t provide any value to be gained from enrolling in the course. However, the following copy does:
Exclusive Spanish course discount for eBook readers
Now this subject line provides value (an exclusive discount). But how to improve even further? Personalize the copy:
[Name], a gift for reading my eBook: Spanish course discount
You’ve got a convincing subject line now. And you should apply this framework for all email marketing: how to convince my reader to open—and perform the action I want?
This applies to signing up for a webinar, watching a video, clicking on a blog post, viewing a product demo… it’s the same structure with slight variations according to your niche. A/B tests and experience will teach you the variations for your industry that work best.
Keep this list handy for your next marketing email blast:
- [Topic] takeaways: 5 takeaways from SEO experts for blogging in 2021
- How to: How to not procrastinate at work [Guide]
- You vs. them: Your performance compared to the Fortune 500
- Results: Reveal Mobile achieves 200% ROI with precision targeting [case study]
- Avoid/Prevent X: Avoid these 5 common SDR mistakes
- Three items: Rio, L.A., and London: Your next vacation awaits
- Usage of pipes ( | ): PlayStation Indies | Enjoy unique and innovative experiences
- Here’s why: Here’s why you should consider TikTok marketing
Best sales email subject lines
There are two ways to write good sales email subject lines: Strike a conversation or go straight for the pitch.
If your audience prefers humane communication, then the first option is your choice. Whereas if your prospect is “straight to the chase” then make the value of your offer clear when they open their inbox.
And as mentioned in the previous “what makes a good email subject line?” item, A/B testing is your friend to discover the highest-converting lines for sales emails.
Anyway, let’s go over examples for conversational and pitch-focused sales email subject lines below:
Conversational subject line examples
- Hoping to help X: [Name], hoping to help with your product launch
- [Benefit] for you: [Name], I have 10 qualified leads for you
- Ideas for X: I have 3 ideas for your next meeting
- Question about X: [Name], question about your management style
- [Referral]: [Name], [referral] mentioned you need help
Pitch-focused subject line examples
- 15 minutes for X: [Name], 15 minutes to discuss account based marketing?
- Meeting invite [date]: Meeting invite on Mon Sep 27
- Permission to close?: [Name], permission to close the deal?
- Next steps: [Name], view our next steps together
- Here’s my pitch: [Name], here’s my pitch on the benefits of bunk beds
Best subject lines for email cadences
Email cadences (also known as drip campaigns) are a series of automated emails designed to nurture a lead.
In case you aren’t familiar with the term, lead nurturing means to develop a relationship with the prospect and foment interest in your products until they are ready to buy. And depending on your niche, cadences can be short (such as a fashion brand) or long, as is the case for most B2B enterprises.
Below we present subject lines for each moment of this email cadence, known as a touch, in which you’ll nurture the lead with content:
First touch email subject line examples
Conversational-style subject lines are a great fit for this step since they set a friendly tone for the start of the cadence.
For the first email, you’ll need to greet the prospect. This can be done with a welcome email, an onboarding, or even a personal introduction.
- Welcome [name]: Welcome [name] to [brand]
- Hi [name]: Hi [name], let me introduce myself
- [Name], glad to have you: [Name], glad to have you onboard
- [Name], get started: [Name], get started with [brand]
- [Name], ready to X: [Name], ready to learn JavaScript?
Second touch email subject line examples
For the second email, you need to promote content that engages the lead. This could be insights from a blog post, an interesting statistic, or even a whitepaper.
In many cases, the introductory email is ignored, so this is your second chance to get the email opened.
- [Name], [Data]: [Name], the US is the largest market for Mobile Ads
- [Name], X insights from Y: [Name], 3 insights from our Mobile Ads report
- [Name], letter from X: [Name], letter from our CEO on Mobile Ads
- [Name], view our trending X: [Name], view our trending Mobile Ad posts
- [Feature] to help your business: 500 on-demand experts to help your business
Third touch email subject line examples
For the third email, you need to warm up the lead for a pitch. This can be with a high-value asset, such as an eBook, or a list of benefits of your services.
The focus now is to promote value (not a sale), so don’t overstep and let the pitch happen in the final email.
- X benefits: 5 benefits of Mobile Ads for small businesses
- [Name], [asset]: [Name], Mobile Ads eBook for small businesses
- Case study: Mobile Ads [client name] case study
- Why X: Why Mobile Ads increase sales for small businesses
- Important things to know: 3 important things to know about Mobile Ads
Fourth touch email subject line examples
Finally, the time has come for the pitch email. Now you can present a unique offer and include CTAs to book a meeting with an SDR.
Keep in mind that you should send this pitch only to leads that opened the former emails and clicked on internal links. You won’t make a sale to a lead that ignored your campaign entirely.
Instead, place leads that ignored emails on a different email cadence, focused on the top of the sales funnel (awareness stage) and promotion of informational content.
- CEO offer: [Name], our CEO offers a personalized ads program for you
- Best solutions for you: [Name], best Mobile Ad programs for [lead’s company]
- X reasons why : 3 reasons why will increase your ROI
- X% off: [Name], 10% off
- Meeting to discuss X this [date]: [Name], meeting to discuss Mobile Ads this Tuesday?
Funny email subject lines
Humor works if you know your audience. Otherwise, it’ll miss the target and can even be considered unprofessional. So, tread carefully with humor but don’t be afraid to tickle a funny bone, and most importantly—get that email opened.
If you’re reluctant to fire away emails with jokes, then test the approach on social media first. If the public resonates (and it doesn’t flop), then you’re safe to jest in emails too.
- Song lyrics: [Name], never gonna give you up
- Dad jokes: I ordered a chicken and an egg online. I’ll let you know.
- Trending topics: Looking like Kim at the Met Gala…
- Puns: Witch, please (Halloween themed email by ModCloth)
Email subject lines to avoid (spam triggers)
Spam filters have evolved in past years to contextually identify spam rather than focus on keywords alone, but it’s best to avoid the following in your campaigns:
“Scammy” keywords
Keywords commonly used by scammers, so avoid them if possible. Unfortunately, even if your email is legit, it might be targeted by filters. The following is merely a short list:
- Legal
- Loan
- Money
- Social security number
- US dollars
- Billing
- Risk-free
- Unsolicited
- Warranty
- Casino
- Luxury car
“Too good to be true” phrases
Unbelievable promises are detected by filters as well. So don’t use these phrases in your subject lines:
- Double your income
- Earn cash
- Eliminate debt
- Increase sales
- Money back
- Free investment
- Fantastic deal
- Lose weight
- Stop snoring
- No fees
- No questions asked
Urgent phrases
If it reads like an 80s TV ad, then your email might go to spam. Avoid anything BUY NOW-style, like the phrases below:
- Apply now
- Act now
- Call now
- Get started now
- Click here
- Do it today
- Take action
- Limited time
- Once in a lifetime
- While stocks last
- Special promotion
Conclusion
Subject lines are compelling because they are the deciding factor that determines whether someone opens your email or not.
Therefore, you want to make sure that you sit down with your team or yourself and thing brainstorm on the most compelling subject line that suits the audience you serve.
