Email marketing accounts for a significant part of many marketing strategies and this is not likely to change anytime soon. According to an article published by Constant Contact, a popular email marketing platform, the average return on investment is $38 for every $1 spent on email marketing. This makes your company’s marketing emails a wise investment to help grow your business and raise brand awareness.
But let’s not forget the importance of quality emails, and specifically subject lines, to get subscribers to interact with your brand. If the subject line doesn’t stand out and grab attention amongst the countless emails filling inboxes each day, it’s likely to be deleted without a second thought. Here are 4 tips for crafting a click worthy email subject line so your brand gets full attention in a full inbox:
Tip #1 – Consider personalization by addressing the recipient by their first name
For the ultimate VIP treatment, you can add the recipient’s name right into the subject line. It’s not like your audience is going to be fooled into thinking that your company is personally drafting an email just to them, it’s more about the overall tone and personalization of being addressed by your name, especially in the valuable real estate of the subject line.
Keep in mind that this requires you have a name field on your opt-in forms. Need a refresher on the latest GDPR regulations? Click here to read our previous article on GDPR and data led marketing.
Tip #2 – Use clear intentions
Do your best to make it crystal clear what a reader can expect from the email within the subject line. Sometimes the creative part of us can go overboard trying to be clever and then the message or intention of the actual email gets lost. There’s a fine line between intriguing and click worthy versus confusing and delete worthy. We recommend running your subject line ideas by a few people to see what sort of reactions you get. You want the reader to get it instantaneously.
Tip #3 – Keep it short and sweet
It’s suggested that your email subject line stays between 33 and 43 characters as to avoid getting cut off on mobile devices. The exact character count varies with different email providers but according to Aweber, another commonly used email marketing platform, the average character count (and sweet spot) on subject lines is roughly 43 characters.
Remember, just about half of us are using a smartphone to check emails so the length of your subject line really does matter! Alternatively, if you choose to go for a longer subject line, make sure that the first part of the subject line makes sense so if it does get cut off in mobile inboxes, the subscriber will still have incentive to open and read.
Tip #4 – Use action words
It’s helpful when a subject line gives a reader an action right off the bat. Actionable verbs encourage readers to open the email rather than take a quick, passing glance. Calls-to-action in any form are important to encourage clicks, opens and eventually sales. Here’s an example:
Subject line with no action: Dog adoption event
Subject line with action: Come out to play with our adoptable dogs!
A few precautions before blasting off your next email campaign:
- Make sure the sender name is familiar to the subscriber. A “no-reply” sender name doesn’t exactly send a warm and fuzzy feeling as a relationship builder with your brand.
- Watch the number of exclamation points and ALL CAPS words, both in subject lines and throughout the email. It’s not that you shouldn’t be expressive – just don’t over do it.
- Before dipping into the use of emojis in a subject line, make sure your audience would approve. Emojis can be received really well by some but can leave a very bad taste to others.
And there you have it, a guide to crafting click worthy subject lines and emails. As always, be sure to reach out to our team of marketing strategists to help you strategize, design and manage your next email marketing campaign. Give us a call at 508-652-0012.