7 Secrets for Effective Subject Lines

Do you want to increase your email open rates? Marketers with higher open rates achieve this by crafting subject lines that their subscribers simply cannot resist. In this guide, we share examples of email subject lines that can help boost the open rates of your emails.

How many unread emails do you have in your inbox? 300? 800? Or maybe, if you’re on countless mailing lists like the example below, 4,081?

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We receive a LOT of emails every day (306.4 billion emails are sent daily!), and many of them are never opened. People are overwhelmed with an abundance of information these days! But we don’t have extra time to absorb it all. The chances of your e-mail being ignored are quite high unless, of course, you have an attractive subject line.

The subject line is your first (and perhaps your last) impression on users. In many ways, the subject line of your email is more important than the body text of your email. After all, a great newsletter is worthless if it’s never read.

There are a few different approaches when it comes to crafting slam-dunk subject lines. We’ll cover 7 different types of effective email subject lines and provide examples along the way.

How to Write Subject Lines That Deliver Results

7 Secrets for Effective Subject Lines

1. THE ‘SENDER’ NAME

This is one of the most important steps: choosing a name or title that is recognizable to your subscribers. Often, this is the company name, but what we would recommend is to create a persona for your brand.
Who will be the face of your email marketing? What is their title? What is their story? Why do they love your brand?

This person can be real or fictional; it doesn't really matter. Write down everything you can think of about this person, give them a name, and you have your Brand Persona.
To make it even better, you can add your company or brand name after your character’s name. So, you get something like:

• Wendy@brandname
• Stefan from brandname
• Leonie @brandname
  

2. THE PREVIEW TEXT

The preview text is the first visible text line that email providers will display next to your subject line. It’s visible in Gmail, Apple, Outlook, and many others.

The goal is to make your subject line and preview text work together to strengthen your message.The preview text should not simply repeat the subject line, but it shouldn't be entirely different either. You can use the preview text to build on a great subject line and ensure that more people open your email.
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3. THE LENGTH

Email subject lines get cut off if they are too long, especially on mobile devices. And when that happens, everything you tried to convey becomes irrelevant.
Since up to 80% of email opens occur on mobile devices, there’s no other solution than to use short subject lines with fewer than 50 characters to ensure that people scanning your emails read the entire subject line.

If you're having trouble keeping your subject lines short, think about which words matter less and where you can remove unnecessary details.
For example, if you’re sending an order confirmation, doesn’t “Your order is currently being processed” look better than “Order number 9435893458358 is being processed”?

The same goes for your regular emails: don’t waste your time with the words "update" or "newsletter" in the subject line. Research suggests that these words can reduce the open rate of the message, as it tells readers that the email is part of a series, making them wait for the next one.

4. CURIOSITY

Russel Brunson, founder of ClickFunnels and a well-known marketing personality, always says that copywriting is what made him rich. And we’re not surprised because what you write and how you write it has more impact on how much money you make with your business than anything else.
This brings us to one of the most important aspects of copywriting: curiosity.
And this applies to your subject lines as well. You have a limited number of characters to work with, but once you find the perfect subject line after some effort, a 30%+ open rate should come as no surprise.

So ask yourself: What can I say that will leave this person with no choice but to open and read this email? And yes, open and read your email. Because once you’ve made someone curious enough to open it, they will likely be curious enough to read the email and hopefully click on the CTA (call to action).

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5. RELEVANCE

The most important factor in email marketing is segmentation. This determines the success or failure of email marketing within companies. Segmenting your audience in lists and sending each segment a tailored email that resonates with the reader and provides something valuable is what makes your email campaign successful.

Segmented and targeted emails generate 77% of all revenue according to DMA, and marketers who use segmented campaigns have seen a 760% increase in revenue according to Hubspot.

So what does segmentation have to do with subject lines?To write a good and especially relevant subject line, you need to know who will be reading it. The more relevant you are, the better it aligns with the needs of the reader.

Is it someone who just made a purchase?
Is it someone who has visited your website in the past 30 days but hasn’t bought anything?
Is it someone who started the checkout process but never completed their purchase?

Data is power. And power means you can be relevant with your content. Email doesn’t have to be spam—and it should never be! It can be used carefully to build loyalty and trust in your brand.

6. URGENCY

One simple but clever way to increase conversion rates is to apply urgency. The reason we all feel the urge to act on those "incredible" deals we constantly receive is psychological. Two factors come into play here.
First, urgent situations compel us to act, either to extend positive emotions or to reduce or prevent negative ones. That’s just how we are as humans.
Second, urgency also triggers loss aversion, which we refer to in marketing as the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO). We don’t want to miss out on a great opportunity, especially if others are seizing it.

Take these two factors and apply them to your subject lines, and your open rates will undoubtedly rise.
However, be mindful of the responsibilities here, so be ethical!
Some commonly used urgency words and phrases are:

• Time (limited time, last time, now, today only, deadline, seconds, minutes)
• Speed (now, act now, don’t wait, hurry, fast, immediately)
• Scarcity (once in a lifetime, only one day, never again, last chance, unique, only x left)
• FOMO (price is going up, expires tonight, now or never, last sale, only a few left)
• Sales words (offer, clearance, deal, going out of business)
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7. EXCLUSIVITY

Do you know what makes a subject line even better and encourages people to take action?
By making the reader feel that they have access before anyone else.
Exclusivity has been proven to drive sales and can significantly contribute when used with urgency (point 6) in marketing.
It’s another way to trigger FOMO and it works: members-only access / VIP access. Things that no one else has access to. That’s just how our brains work.

When your subject line indicates that something isn’t available to everyone, it will spark your readers’ interest.
Use words like ‘insider,’ ‘exclusive,’ ‘secret,’ ‘behind the scenes,’ and ‘sneak peek’ if you want to hint at exclusivity and less widely known information. Be creative with it. And don’t lie; make it authentic and real. If you say you’re giving them early access to something, then actually do it. Don’t just send the same email to everyone, which means that no one is receiving something exclusive.

THE SUBJECT LINE BIBLE

Download our internal 'bible' for subject lines with tips to increase your open rates.