Your existing and potential customers receive hundreds of emails in a day, including work mails, personal notes, online billing statements, subscriptions, and even social media notifications. Good news is people do subscribe to emails and want to receive updates. Bad news, however, is that they don’t actually read all these mails being sent to them. They choose what to read, and they browse through the email subject lines to identify which ones are worth their time.
This could then be challenging for business owners like you. Getting thousands to subscribe to your mailing list is one thing, but having all of them to open your emails and actually perform your call to action is another thing. Your goal then is to be able to catch the attention of your reader instantly, even without opening your email. And the only area you can do this is in is the subject line, since it’s the first thing one sees in the inbox.
So how do you capture your readers’ attention through your email subject line? Here are some tried and tested strategies you should follow:
Keep it short and simple
The ideal length of your email’s subject line should be about 25 characters only. You’ve got to keep in mind that you’re working within a really small space. A longer subject line is going to get cut off, and will look incomplete in the inbox. So, introduce your email with as few words as possible. It should be brief but comprehensive nonetheless.
Stir interest or intrigue
Another trick to catch your readers’ attention is to stir their curios minds. People have this innate need to want to know more, so you’ve got to take advantage of this in your email subject lines. Put some information in it, but at the same time, keep it subtle and tickle your buyer’s fancy so they’d want more.
Hence, it is important to know what interests your target audience, in relation to the products you’re selling. If you’re offering sports equipment or gym membership deal for instance, you can include a popular athlete’s name.
Don’t be too bold
As much as possible, avoid using a lot of exclamation points or putting the words in uppercase. This is equivalent to shouting online, and you wouldn’t want to overwhelm your readers. Subject lines that use these formats are too obnoxious and loud that they’re going to be ignored. Plus, they will most likely be filtered to the spam or junk mail folders and wouldn’t even land in your buyer’s inbox!
Ask a question
A person’s natural response is to provide an answer when a query is being thrown at them. It’s going to make them think, especially if the question is interesting enough. This is the same thing in email subject lines. If you use an intriguing question, then they’re going to mentally answer and act on it. And in this case, they’re going to click on the email and see if their answer is in the email you sent (as it should be).
Be personal
Include the first names of your recipients in the email subject line. This can be done using specific email send out tools that can create personalized email subjects. Consumers are more likely to open emails that are addressed directly to them. In fact, research shows that email clicks are higher when they are personalized.