Creating Compelling Subject Lines - Page 2
So this is your formula for the From Line:
Personal Name – Company Name
The Subject Line
The subject line should coordinate with the From line (i.e. don’t mention the company name again in the subject line). The length of the visible subject line varies according to the email provider, but 50 characters is always safe. In those 50 characters, you’ll need to be straightforward, be as brief as possible, avoid certain words, and convey these three messages:
1. A clear feature or benefit
2. Ease of access
3. Immediate value
Be Straightforward
Do not make promises in the subject line about the email message that aren’t true. No one will ever open your emails or read your posts again. The best advice is to use the subject line for telling, rather than selling what’s in the message.
Be as Brief as Possible
The optimal length of a subject line is a very hot topic. While research shows that the shorter the subject line, the better – some experts believe relevance is more important than length.
The Short Subject Line camp points out the fact that emails from friends and relatives tend to have shorter subject lines and very high open rates. For example, “Tomorrow” “My House” or “FYI”. But what they forget is that emails from friends and relatives have a huge advantage in the From line – people always open them because they know who they’re from.
The Relevant at Any Length Subject Line camp believes that the open rate is higher for emails with compelling subject lines, regardless of length. “Relevance”, however is not easy to quantify – hence the lack of data to back up this assertion.
A commonsense approach is to keep the subject line as short, focused, and relevant as possible. This means, don’t go over the 50 characters that appear in the visible subject line space and make every character count.
Avoid Certain Words
The three words/phrases you’ll want to avoid are these:
• Help
• Percent off
• Reminder
In addition to avoiding these three words, avoid other words that convey the same sentiments. For example, “Don’t Forget” is the same as “Reminder”. Why? Researchers have discovered that the click through rates on subject lines with those words and sentiments are low. No one can say exactly why – they can only speculate that “Help” and “Reminder” imply work and “Percent off” is always too good to be true.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati