3 Ways to Make Email Subject Lines Appeal To Your Audience

You probably already know how critically important your email subject line is.  After all, it’s what stands between your email content and your audience.  If it’s not compelling and relevant to your audience, they will simply ignore your email completely and move on to the next best thing – leaving your email content unvisited and unread.

There are 3 key things you should consider when creating email subject lines to appeal to your audience and increase open rates:

1. Recipient Type

You can categorise the recipients of your bulk emails as:

• existing customers / previous customers
• prospects – for example people who signed up for your newsletter but have never made further contact

Existing and previous customers have dealt with you, they know your products and your service – they have experienced your brand.  So use your limited character count to focus on making them interested enough to click on your email  eg.

Why Customers Are Clamouring For our Amazing Christmas Offers

Need Inspiration For The Perfect Christmas Gift? Specials Available.

If you have a strong connection to your customers – they regularly engage with you on social media and the like – you can take a leaf out of Jon Loomer’s book.  He offers advanced marketing strategies for Facebook advertising and keeps in contact with his very many subscribers through frequent, informal email subject lines. For example:

A crazy — but EFFECTIVE — way to target….

You asked for it – NOW HERE IT IS!

I’ve tested Facebook ‘Live’ and here’s what I think….

These kinds of subject lines are likely to be less effective if you use them for your prospects.  These people may be vaguely aware they signed up for your newsletter eons ago, but may be a little hazy about your brand and what you sell.  A more direct approach is recommended.eg.

Don’t forget Blakes’ Electrical Goods. Christmas Special Now On.

Blake’s Has The Ideal Christmas Gadget For Everyone. Specials Available.

You can even incorporate your company name within the subject line to further jog people’s memories, an approach favoured by Social Media Examiner:

[SocialMediaExaminer] How to Boost Your Engagement With Visual Content‏

Overall it’s fair to say that the closer your relationship with the email recipient, the more flexibility you have with your email subject line – you can test out more informal and attention grabbing statements without appearing spammy.  After all these recipients already know and value your brand.

2. Recipient Age

The age range of your audience should be considered when composing your email subject line.  Yes it’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation, but on the whole, the way to engage with teens and twentysomethings is going to be quite different to those over 50.

If you’re selling surf equipment to a hipster crowd it may be quite appropriate to weave in words such as funky and dude into your email subject line – as your heart desires.  But if you’re trying to promote products to a middle aged audience, these kinds of words would go down like a lead balloon.

As with all marketing approaches, your email subject line should be in keeping with your brand and tone of voice.

Which takes us nicely on to ….

3. Recipient Expectations

People expect a certain type of communication from certain types of companies.  They expect banks, other financial institutions, solicitors, insurance companies and similar to portray themselves and their products in a professional and quite formal way. If not their customers will start to doubt their trustworthiness.

This means that many great adjectives and colloquial phrases should be used carefully (or not at all) in their email subject lines or they could give completely the wrong impression (and probably get them into trouble with their professional regulatory bodies!) eg.

Savvy Investors Will Love Our Great Interest Rates

Super Boost Your Savings With Our Most Popular Savings Plan

Beef Up Your Insurance Cover For Peace of Mind

On the other hand, people don’t see any problem with entertainment venues, online clothes shops, service providers etc  ‘talking’ to them in a more informal way.

Are You A Savvy Shopper Looking For A Sassy New Look?

Super Boost Your Free Time With Our Great New App

Interesting adjectives can make an email stand out from the crowd, pique a reader’s interest and encourage them to click to read the whole of the email.

However bear in mind that these buzzy adjectives have a negative side – they can make your company or offer appear to be too good to be true or slightly spammy.  People tend to be downright cynical and if they barely know your brand, then receive an email offer to turbo charge their sales in 20 days, don’t be surprised if your open rate doesn’t skyrocket.  They simply don’t believe what you are saying.

In conclusion, getting your email subject line spot on is no easy task.  You need to consider your recipient type, recipient age and the recipient’s expectations of how you should communicate with them.  There is really only one way to see what kind of email subject line resonates with your own audience – and that is to test different approaches and see what results in the highest open rate.

This great article from Mequoda gives a concise overview of the angle you can take for your subject line, such as ‘benefit’, ‘how to’, ‘question’,’ testimonial’, ‘personalised’ etc.

And on a final note, this article wouldn’t be complete without an acknowledgement that there is a whole host of words you should avoid in that all important email subject line – those seen as spam by email providers, and which may result in your email being swiftly deposited in the junk box to never be found again.

Check out this great summary by Hubspot – The Ultimate List of Email Spam Trigger Words. There are also a number of free tools which you can use to test if your email is spam – they will help you determine if your email will go straight to the junk box (based on not only the subject line but also the email content).

When you’re creating email subject lines, you need to customise them for your audience, ensure they don’t appear too good to be true, and avoid your emails landing in the junk box at all costs.

Good luck and keep testing!