5 Best Practices for Subject Lines that Work

Subject lines serve different purposes to their creator s and recipients. For a marketer, subject lines decide whether the piece of information they are trying to share will reach the target audience or not. For the recipient, subject lines decide which emails get deleted or moved to Sp*m.

For lead nurturing campaigns, a good subject line is the conversation starter and an influencer in future engagement. Here are 5 Best practices for writing engaging subject lines:

• Have a purpose: Given the short attention span of your audience, not giving them a good reason to open the email can be suicidal. Be specific about your message and start by writing a subject line that has a clear purpose.
• Get familiar: Writing your company name or addressing the recipient y their first name or their profession gives your audience a sense of recognition. Add a purpose in the remaining part of the subject line and you may just prompt your audience to open the mail.

• Keep it short: Your inbox shows only so much of a subject line. And with most of your audience going mobile, making your subject line smartphone–ready is a de jure. With limited real estate, shorter the subject line, more is the chance of your audience getting the gist of your dialogue, and starting the conversation.
  Caveat: don’t compromise purpose for length. A long subject line with well defined purpose works better than a short, futile sentence.
• Frontload your subject line: in the same vein as above, get some action trigger words in your first 15 -20 characters – the preview pane of smart phone may only give you that much room. This could be either your company name, or the benefit that the audience will get or anything else that piques curiosity.
• Test, test and test some more: Finally, test your subject lines. If you have the time, follow the longer route. Have 3-4 subject lines tested on a smaller group from the master list, 2-3 days prior to the actual blast. Finally, use the subject line that gets maximum traction.