The Art of the Subject Line
Stephanie Creech
From friends and family to clients and potential customers, getting someone to open your email is not always easy, or is it?
Let’s talk about the subject line.
It’s the first thing everyone sees, and in a split second a decision is made – to read or
not to read. Now, a great subject line will get your email read immediately, a good subject lines might get your email read within 24 hours, and a bad subject line, even to your friends and family, means your email may never get read.
Know your Demographic
Now, for those of you trying to get the attention of a potential customer let’s look at what can be done to get
an open! First and foremost, you need to know your demographic. Yes, your demographic. A subject line that gets the attention of a baby boomer is different from that of a Millennial. The same can be said for a Generation X versus a Gen Z. Very different groups of people.
• Gen Z, iGen, or Centennials: Born 1996 and later
• Millennials or Gen Y: Born 1977 to 1995
• Generation X: Born 1965 to 1976
• Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964
• Traditionalists or Silent Generation: Born 1945 and before
Speak their Language
The subject line needs to be relatable to the recipient, otherwise they will never open it. Look to pop culture
for great ideas. The most common pop culture categories are: entertainment (movies, music, television,
games), sports, news (as in people/places in news), politics, fashion/clothes, technology, and slang.
Jump on the bandwagon
With email marketing platforms, just like all technology, functionality continues to be improved. When your
platform provider rolls out a new update, become familiar with it – and use it. Currently, the newest
functionality includes personalization and emoji’s in the subject line. They did it for a reason. The research
has proven that you are more likely to open an email if it’s personalized. So, in the race to be the industry
leader, the top email marketing platforms have figured out how to make this happen. Use it to your
advantage. Eventually it will be overused and will lose its impact.
Keep your theme in the follow-up
If you are using an email marketing platform, you know the results of your email campaign. You know what each person did or didn’t do. You can group your recipients by their action and follow-up with another email. For the recipients that opened the original email, keep the conversation going. Don’t confuse them
with an entirely new topic, build from the original. Each campaign is a new topic, follow-thru with the followup.
Preview Text