6 Proven Subject Line Formulas

Your email subject line has to serve two very powerful purposes. First, it has to get your message delivered into the inbox rather than getting trapped by a spam filter or sent to the junk folder. Secondly, it has to entice your reader to open your email and read the message.

Believe it or not, in this day of email overload, both of those seemingly simple tasks are actually difficult to achieve. Crafting the perfect subject line is not a job to be taken lightly. One slight mistake can mean the demise of your entire mail campaign.

The following subject line formulas have been proven to work, and can be easily adapted to your own email messages:

1. Tie in to current events
If the topic of your email can somehow be tied into a current event, mention it in your subject line. Readers love news, trends, hot gossip, etc, and since email is so immediate, this is a great technique to increase your open rates. But pay special attention to filters. Certain celebrity names and other topics can easily get flagged as spam.

2. Ask a question
What will the reader learn by reading your email? Simply turn it into a question, like What are the 6 easiest ways to write a subject line? You can use this concept even if your message is retail related. If you’re a women’s clothing retailer, try What looks best with red pumps? If you’re an on-line toy store, how about How many rooms in the new Winchester doll house?

3. State a benefit
Tell the reader exactly what he will get by reading your email. If he will save time, tell him You’ll save 20 minutes each day with these tips or maybe Your workload will be cut in half with this new widget. If you’re providing success tips, be specific in your subject line, like 6 proven subject line formulas.

4. Use a testimonial
If you’re lucky enough to have an endorsement from someone all your readers will know, try using it in your subject line, such as Joe Shmoe says he loves it. The endorsement doesn’t have to come from a celebrity or someone famous. It just needs to be someone your readers will know, such as an industry insider or a respected authority.

5. Remind them of urgency
Include applicable deadlines in your subject line, like Last day for free shipping or Order by Tuesday for Christmas delivery.

6. Include your company name
If you’re not including your company name in the From filed, try adding it to the beginning of your subject line. Your readers will feel more comfortable opening your message when they know it is from a trusted, reliable source.

And, as always, don’t forget to test, test, test, and be wary of spam filters. Your email service provider should have some type of built in mechanism or list segmentation to help with the testing, and my complimentary spam filters checklist can help in the filters area. (download the checklist here)

You might also be interested in:

• How To Design Your Email Messages For Mobile Devices
• Boring Subject Lines Outpull Hype
• 5 Tips to Improve Your ROI
• Use Larger Fonts for Better Delivery
• Improve Your Email Open Rates With These Subject Line Tests

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.