Emails are one of the most important ways of communication between businesses and customers and the subject lines are the first things your customers see! It is cheap, easy to do, and most importantly, it can be quite effective! With all of this importance standing behind email, it is important to make sure that your emails stand out and get the clicks and engagement they deserve.
For this reason, we decided to do some research on our own and present you with some incredible tips that can help your email subject lines capture your audience’s attention!
Why Are Email Subject Lines So Important?
It’s no secret that emails with subject lines that stand out are more likely to be opened than those without any subject line at all. And although some email marketers sometimes choose to send marketing emails with no subject line, it’s still important to have a subject line if you want to achieve maximum open rates.
A great subject line can ensure that your email gets opened, read, and probably interacted with. Mastering the art of headlines will improve your campaigns dramatically and if you continue on reading, you will learn how to do exactly that!
What Makes A Great Subject Line?

A great subject line has some if not all of these properties: short, urgent, catchy, attention-grabbing, and accurate. To see what we mean by this, let’s dissect this further.
- Short
Make them short and to the point. This is the whole reason why people get so annoyed with email subject lines that go on for several words – they take too long to read through and comprehend, which means there’s a chance they’ll get deleted or marked as spam before even getting opened. Short and simple is best.
- Urgency
A good title will create a sense of urgency with your reader. They will want to see what you have to say and have a fear of missing out on the info contained in the email. Make sure that - Catchy
Make it catchy and memorable. Catchy email subject lines stick in people’s minds which is great for your business because they’ll know what to expect when they open your email. A memorable subject line can also help you to avoid the dreaded spam or trash folders because people will remember they want to read your email and they’ll be inclined to open it even if they receive a lot of emails every day.
- Attention-Grabbing
Your headline should be as attention-grabbing as possible. You need to make sure that your prospect really wants to read what you have to say. Try using the slippery slope method, where every sentence flows into the next, and so creates a flowing text that just begs to be read at once!
- Accurate
The worst thing you can do is be dishonest. Don’t make things up. If you mention something in the headline, make sure that you actually cover that subject in the copy. Include the main point of what’s inside. If you can’t fit the topic at hand in your email subject line, then there’s a pretty good chance that it’s too long. This isn’t as big a deal as having an incredibly short subject line because it may be hard to fit all of the information into just a few words. However, you should always try to include as much as possible about what’s inside so that people won’t be left wondering.
Some Examples Of Good And Bad Subjects
“Blogging tips, tricks, and ideas!”
“Stay tuned… New Exciting Posts Coming Soon!”
“What You Should Do To Make Sure That Your Business Will Manage To Succeed And What That Means For Your Business”
“Get Rich Right Now With These FREE Tools!”
These are all bad because they don’t include a sense of urgency, they aren’t catchy or attention-grabbing, and they aren’t descriptive enough. In some cases, they aren’t even accurate!
If you Instead use subject lines such as:
“How to Grow Your Blog Traffic by 40% in 30 Days or Less.”
“The 3 Most Important Things You Need to Know When Blogging for Your Business”
As you can see these headlines are much better. They offer an interesting prospect, they get straight to the point, and they promise to offer some valuable information inside of the mail content.
How To Create Effective Subject Lines For Your Emails
Know What Your Email Needs To Achieve
The first thing you should realize about your email is what its intent is. Who wants to read it? Who can it help? What is its purpose? How to best approach the target audience? When you have the answers to these questions, you should be able to see in which direction your email, and headline should go.
Try A Couple Of Variations
As with anything, making it on the first try is a bit tricky. This is why the best subject line writers use a couple of different email headlines and test them out. Draft two or three email lines and see what works best. After a couple of iterations of this, you should pick up on patterns and keywords that your audience enjoys the most.
Determine The End Goal
What is the end goal of your email? Is it just for people to read through, or do you want those people to sign up for something or maybe even buy something you offer? What will make users click on the email in the first place, is it because they can win something, save money off purchases, learn new information? Depending on all of these factors, you need to make sure to include at least parts of the answer inside the headline and adjust your CTA inside of the email accordingly.
Use Emojis
Nowadays emojis are all over the web. These characters were usually reserved for teens and young adults, but now, everyone uses them. They have been proven to influence the way people see your campaigns and interact with them. Most people respond very positively to well-added emojis as it makes the text feel more sincere and personalized. You can see this trend in pretty much every social media post from companies in the last few years. Everyone uses emojis and the trend is here to stay, so use them as well!
Implement Feedback
Feedback is one of the most important things you can get from your audience. They will tell you exactly what they like or hate about your email campaigns. Getting the feedback is one thing, but properly implementing it is another thing completely. Try taking second opinions of your work to heart and change your campaigns accordingly. You can use the changed version as a testing variation and test out just how it works.
Some Templates You Can Use
“Improve [Problem] Now, With These [X] Steps”
“See What [New Development] Brings To The [Audience Interest]”
“New [Product]: What It Means For [Audience]”
“Achieve [Desirable Outcome] with these [X] Steps”
“Use This [Tool/Product] To Reduce Your Workload Today!”
“Don’t Forget About [Event]! It Is Going To Be Incredible!”
“Last Chance! Get [Offer] [X]% Off Tonight!”
Try finding a list of words that trigger spam filters and avoid them at every opportunity. After all, you want your audience to see these emails, not fetch them from spam boxes!
Conclusion
These were just some of the major points to consider when working on your new email campaign. As you can see, it is no difficult task, yet bringing all the information together at the same time is what takes skill and experience. Notice how these headlines are not necessarily long or wordy? This will make for a great advantage when placing them in your newsletter body, as they will still give a lot of information and be a complete sentence. You should always check up on the latest trends and other marketing strategies to keep your campaigns fresh and relevant.
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