Are you putting a lot of effort into your email content and getting no response from your audience? In that case, it may be worth having a look at your open rates. After all, there’s a heavy chance that your email was received but it simply didn’t seem worthy of a click-through.
First impressions count
Your subject line provides the very first snippet of insight into your company and your promotion, so make it good. Some people get hundreds of emails a day and take just seconds to make an evaluation.
If the subject line of your email doesn’t catch your reader’s attention they won’t open it – even if the content could be useful. According to a survey carried out by Salesforce in 2016, a massive 69% say they would report an email as spam based on the subject line alone.
In other words, if you want your email opened, read and clicked you need an outstanding opener. It’s your first impression and can determine the start or end of your customer’s experience with your business.
Short, snappy and concise
Start your email by clearly identifying your business in the ‘from’ field, as people are much more likely to open mails from people they recognise and trust. The next step is to create a subject line that’ll convince your customers to open the email. Here are some tips how to write a good subject line:
- The shorter and snappier the subject line, the better. Think about which words really matter and don’t use more than 50 characters or 10 words.
- Personalise names. The Salesforce report also showed that 18% of all readers open their email when the subject line includes their name. Include a user’s name, location or a special event near them to show that present an air of familiarity.
- It’s important that your subject line reflects your email content. Anything too misleading will simply end in a high bounce or unsubscribe rate.
- Avoid vague lines, clichés or non-specific requests. Instead, write an interesting and unique subject line.
- Avoid words like ‘free’, ‘percent off’, ‘reminder’ and ‘special’ as well as pound symbols and exclamation points. These can trigger spam filters.
A great way to test your subject lines it to A/B split test them. Different subject line variants will provide fantastic insight into what works best for you. Over time, this will influence the decisions you continue to make to give you the best possible outcome.
At Bigwave, we can do all this and more. Our email marketing package is a quick, easy and affordable way to use email to reach your existing client base or outreach to potential customers. Get in touch here to find out more.