5 Simple Subject Line Strategies to Boost Email Open Rates

With enough practice and discipline, anybody can effectively use subject lines, boost email open rates, secure additional leads, and generate new revenue.

While the subject line you choose for a marketing email isn’t everything, it still contributes significantly to your success. Your subject line is even more important than what’s in the body of your email. The fact is 47 percent of recipients open emails solely based on the subject line.

There are several strategies you can follow if your email open rate isn’t where it should be.

Study and implement the various types of subject lines

Most of the time, subject lines can be categorized. Some subject lines pique curiosity, while others communicate urgency or scarcity. Before drafting a subject line, ask yourself the following question: “Why am I sending this email?” Writing a good subject line frequently becomes a lot easier after you’ve identified your goal. For example, are you promoting a new product, service, or discount? Are you sharing a blog post on the best ways to digitally transform a company? While you do always want to be as original as possible with your subject line, relying on tried-and-true formats is how you’re going to consistently increase the likelihood of subscribers opening up your emails and taking action.

Write several subject lines before choosing “the one”

As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” The more subject lines you write, the better you’ll get at writing them. In other words, if you write enough bad subject lines, you’ll also write a few good ones. So, whenever you’re getting ready to deploy a new marketing email for your subscribers, write several subject lines first to ensure you’ve done your best to create the best subject line possible.

Consider how your subject line would look on a mobile device

Do you read more marketing emails on your laptop or smartphone? Well, either way, the verdict is in for the majority of consumers: Sixty-one percent of marketing emails are opened on mobile devices. It’s because of this that many digital marketing experts recommend that companies keep subject lines short. No more than nine words and 60 characters, according to the marketing automation platform MailChimp. You can accomplish this by keeping your email’s subject line clear and concise.

Be descriptive instead of trendy

Avoid being trendy, cheesy, or broad with your subject lines. Here’s the thing: Consumers want a taste of what’s to come when they read a subject line. You don’t want your email to underdeliver what they’re expecting after opening it. When this happens, you lose not only subscribers but also customers and potential customers. A subject line should make a promise and deliver on that promise. While you want to grab the attention of your subscribers with a carefully crafted subject line, you also want to be as straightforward as possible to avoid irritating your customers and prospects.

Always be testing

Testing your subject lines is key to increasing your open rates. Professional marketers use A/B testing to determine which subject lines perform better over others. So, what does A/B testing entail? One subject line is sent to a portion of your audience while the other is sent to another portion. The subject line with the best open rate is sent to the remainder of the audience.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing good subject lines for marketing emails, there are best practices, and if you follow them consistently, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll increase your email open rate.