September 12, 2007
Bad Subject Lines
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
You’d think by now people would know at least a little something about how to send an email campaign. But tonight I received a piece of unsolicited email (aka spam) with the breathless subject line: “Are You Planning to Enhance Your Member Communications in 2008?”
My itchy trigger finger could not hit “delete” fast enough (though my Outlook preview pane was open just long enough to reveal that this marketing masterpiece was actually being sent by a company that sells email newsletter services … for how much longer, I don’t know.)
Three quick tips on email subject lines you can take to the bank (and one cranky bonus tip that I’m probably wrong about, but feel strongly about just the same):
1) Your goal is to get the email opened, not to make people roll their eyes.
2) Make your email subject lines read like a sentence that someone might actually send to someone else. Avoid Email Subject Lines That Capitalize the Initial First Letter of Each Word Like a Book Title.
3) Keep subject lines short and, as Strunk & White so famously advised, “omit needless words.” Short subject lines don’t just read better … many people have various screen configurations that will only display a certain number of characters under “Subject” in their inbox.
Bonus subject line tip that is much more a personal opinion than the others: Almost never do regular people send emails to other regular people with subject lines that start with the recipient’s first name (as in, “Kevin, Did You Eat All the Cookies?”). I’m sure there’s probably all sorts of data showing that email subject lines that do this sort of thing get opened, but it won’t last long, trust me. You can start the email body with “Dear Kevin” all you want, but avoid temptation to personalize the subject line. It screams “This Is an Ad.”
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