11. Subject Line Hall of Shame . Do : Be timely and current, yet sensitive to what is going on in the world around you. Don’t : Try to capitalize on others’ suffering or current disasters ** Beware: This email created a lot of negative buzz on Twitter Example of a positive cultural and timely subject line sent by a bookstore: Join the Barack Obama Book Club
We’d like to start off the webinar by giving you three reasons that subject lines are so important. In fact, some people argue that they are the most important part of your email, because without a good subject line, people won’t open your email and will miss your message completely. Get through SPAM filters – If your email is flagged as spam because of a questionable word in the subject line, no one will receive your message. A clean subject line helps ensure that your email is delivered. We’ll talk about words to avoid later in the presentation. Recent reports say that 69% of readers mark email as spam. Compel your recipient to open it – People receive an average of 100 emails a day, so your message is competing with a lot of others to get your customer’s attention. You have an estimated three seconds of your customer’s attention during which they will decide to open or delete your email. Stand out and make sure that they open it. We will talk about ways to stand out in the inbox later on in this presentation, too. Set and keep expectations: Your subject line should be compelling, but not misleading. Be sure that what your subject line promises is actually delivered in the email content.
Here we have the three main components that work together to get your email opened: From Line Subject Line Pre-header text The first image you see is an example of what a subject line and it’s extended parts look like in the inbox The second image is an example of what these parts look like when an email is opened. This is important to keep in mind when designing your email and writing your subject lines. You want to know what your recipient is going to see, and consider how it will compel them to open your email. From Line: Automatically populated from your account profile. You can change this, but we don’t recommend you do so because of consistency and recognition. This is where you build credibility, and how your recipients recognize the sender (you or your company) and think to themselves, “this is something I signed up for” or “I know this company.” Subject line: Primary message, offer, CTA that makes the reader decide “This is something I am interested in” or “I would like to know more about this” or “this is cool!” Pre-header text: A supplementary message that gives more information, hopefully further compelling your recipient to open your email. The preheader and subject line should be different. Saying the same thing doesn’t add any additional value. Your from line has your company name, so there’s no reason to give your company name again in your subject line. This is repetitive and a waste of space.
Think about your own inbox and which messages you decide to open, delete, or report as spam (or messages that you find in your junk box). Follow these simple tactics for success…
Here is an inside look at the junk box. Can you see why these emails were delivered as spam? After this, we advise you to go look at your on junk box and see what ends up there. This is “no man’s land” for email.