When scrolling through your long list of emails – what grabs your attention most? It could be the sender’s email or name, but most likely you’re drawn to the subject line.
Compelling subject lines hold the power to shape your newsletter statistics. Craft something creative and attention-grabbing that compels people to click? You’ll likely see increased website traffic and a higher conversion rate from subscribers to customers. Conversely, a newsletter with a lackluster subject line leads to wasted hours on content creation that doesn’t perform well in terms of conversions.
In this article, we will talk about newsletter best practices for creating impactful subject lines that will make your emails convert.
1. Keep Your Subject Lines Short
Choosing concise subject lines guarantees readability across various platforms and devices when recipients open your emails. For instance, a subject line like “New Deal Starts Today: Buy One Get One Free” may be cut off after just a few words, losing its impact. In contrast, a more concise subject line such as “Buy One Get One Free!” ensures that the customer captures the essence of your offer, making it more effective.
2. Get Their Attention
In a sea of other emails – how will yours stand out from the crowd? You need to do something to grab their attention. You can accomplish this by adding emoji’s, putting their name in the subject line, or saying something unique that they wouldn’t expect to see. Whatever you do, make sure it makes you more noticeable than the rest of their inbox.
3. Be Aware of Your Sender Name and Email Address
Oftentimes, companies we work with think it would be best to send the email from a company email such as sales@newcompany.com. The problem with this is it doesn’t look like a real human is sending the email. Customers are more inclined to click when the email comes from a person. So if you don’t want all the emails coming from your personal email, create a second one that is designated for newsletters, or choose a person at the company who doesn’t mind.
If your company name has power with your customers, then go ahead and use that as the sender name. But if you are unsure – it’s best to use a human name instead. Choose someone at the company that most customers would know. And if there isn’t anyone like this at your company, then opt for using someone as high up the ladder as possible to help build trust with consumers.
4. A/B Test Your Subject Lines To Find The Best One
Sometimes, we don’t know which subject line will do best. The best way to find out what subject lines users prefer is to let the users decide! One way to do this is A/B testing your subject lines.
A/B testing is done when you create two emails with two different subject lines, keeping everything else in the other email the same. Whatever e-newsletter platform you are using will send probably around ¼ – ½ of your contact list the emails with an equal amount of them getting each subject line. Whatever subject line performs best, wins. The remaining subscribers on the list will receive the winning subject line.
A/B testing should provide you with better open-rate results!
5. Whenever Possible Use Urgency or Exclusivity
Marketing 101: Make the customer feel like they are missing out if they don’t click this email. Would you be more compelled to open an email titled “Your Fav Sweater Is Almost Sold Out!” Or “Shop Our Sweater Collection”? You would likely choose option 1.
6. Use Emotion To Your Advantage
There are many other emotions to play off of besides urgency or exclusivity in your subject lines. You can use fear, mystery, excitement, guilt, self-interest, scarcity, and so many more emotions to make people feel the need to open. Don’t be afraid to play on emotions when it comes to marketing.
7. Use Classics Like the “How To” or the “Quick Fix” Subject Lines
These kinds of subject lines have been around since day one. People always want to improve their life and knowledge or learn the quickest easiest way to be successful. Some examples of this could be:
- Simple Diet Changes To Make You Happier
- 5 Steps To Getting Rich
- How To Become Debt Free in 2024
8. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Questions
Combine some other tactics from above with a question, and you’re likely to get an amazing open rate. Questions get users thinking and engaged. Here are a few examples:
- Where is all my money going?
- Do you get enough sleep?
- Are you ready for the time of your life?
