Craft your Email Subject
Email subject line is the bridge between your recipient and your email. Subject is one of the few things that your recipients notice before opening the email, the others being sender name and pre-header.
Subject lines aren't always easy to write, but following the proven practices given below will help you avoid the common mistakes and sharpen your email subject lines.
Chisel your subject
Short and simple
Less is more when it comes to a subject line. A smart subject line has around four to six words at the maximum.
Spell check
This is easy to overlook, but even a typo will affect your open rates. Make sure to check for spelling and grammatical mistakes in the email subject and message.
Add pre-header
Inbox providers of your email recipients generally take the first few lines of your email message and set it as pre-header. It may include salutations or other lines you don't want to show up in the inbox view. You can set your customized pre-header.
A/B testing
Test your emails for different subject lines using A/B testing. You can pick the line with better responses. To learn more about A/B testing, click here.
Relevant content
Your email subject and message should be relevant. If your email message is about a webinar, then the subject should also talk about the webinar.
Mobile responsive
Most of your recipients are likely to open emails in mobile devices. So, make sure your emails are mobile-friendly. While testing your emails, try opening emails from your mobile devices and check if the email looks fine.
Subject personalization
You can personalize your emails to make your recipients feel more engaged with Zoho Campaigns' merge tags. You can easily add the merge tags for recipients' first and last name by clicking on the Personalize option next to Subject text box while creating a campaign.
Emojis
Using emojis have varied results depending on the audience and how well you use them. For email clients which don't support emojis, the symbol ☐ is displayed. So, know how your recipients will view your emails and then decide on including emojis.
Things to avoid
All CAPS
Writing in all caps is an equivalent of yelling at your recipients. All caps may stand out in the inbox, but it'll give a negative impression to your recipients. Also, spam filters consider subject line with all-caps as suspicious.
Faking Re/Fwd tags
Including “re” or “fwd” in email subject might appear clever, but it misleads your recipients and creates mistrust. Also, anti-spam services are smart and can easily identify fake RE: and FW: tags. To learn why you should avoid faking re/fwd tags and how anti-spam services detect it, click here.
Excess punctuation
Too many punctuation marks in the subject line is considered suspicious by spam filters as phishing emails generally have excessive punctuation marks.
False promises
On opening emails with false offers in email subject, recipients will either unsubscribe or mark them as spam. If you're giving an offer for a few products, state it clearly in the subject.
Aggressive statements
Demanding your recipients to open your emails will have a negative effect and lead to spam complaints. Subject lines seeking help, emergency, sensitive information, and other favors are considered suspicious by recipients and spam filters.
Words to avoid using in a subject line:
Industry | Words to avoid |
Retail | as seen on, discount, buy, clearance |
Personal | meet singles, dear friend, please help, desperate |
Get rich quick | additional income, home-based job, extra income, online degree |
Financial schemes | quote, claim, Paypal, invoice |
Marketing | lead generation, Search Engine Optimization(SEO), trial offer, sign up today |
Pharmaceutical | Lose weight, reverse ageing, online pharmacy, Viagra |
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