Maximize Email Open Rates With These Proven Tricks
Online marketing speak for:
“Powerful email marketing strategies”
In this article, we will cover how to create effective email subject lines. We will review words to avoid in your email campaigns as well as other tips that will increase the likelyhood of your email actually being read by your audience.
On this page
- Importance of email subject lines
- Our top 10 email subject line best practices
- 1. Keep it short and segmented
- 2. Test multiple subject lines
- 3. Don’t use ALL CAPS or exclamation points!!!!
- 4. Avoid using spam-trigger words and phrases
- 5. Personalization goes a long way
- 6. Send from a person’s name
- 7. Focus on your readers’ pain points
- 8. Use alliteration
- 9. Take advantage of the seasons
- 10. Use numbers
- Make your preview text more appealing
- Perfect your timing
Importance of email subject lines
Do you want to be successful in your email marketing campaigns? Of course! That’s what we all want, right? Creating effective subject lines is the most practical way to increase email open rates and will contribute greatly to the success of your email marketing campaigns.
Email subject lines play a huge role in increasing click-through rates of your email campaigns. The subject is one of the first things your email readers will see, so you had better make it impactful and memorable. This is your business’s first shot in connecting with the customer. In fact, the majority of email readers decide whether to open the message or not based solely on the subject line alone. So keep your reader in mind when crafting your next email campaign.
Our top 10 email subject line best practices
Here are some tried-and-tested tips to help you create effective email subject lines and increase your engagements.
1. Keep it short and segmented
Studies suggest that subject lines with 50 characters or less have higher click-through rates than longer ones. In addition, mobile phone users can’t see the whole subject line if it’s too long. Don’t go into details just a short summary to prove to your email readers that you have great content to share.
Segment your email list to identify what is relevant to each of your readers. Make sure your email list is organic and not a paid list or else the relevance of your email campaign will drop.
2. Test multiple subject lines
Create multiple subject lines for every email and test which ones perform best. You can A/B test a subject line with different variations like length, style, and personalization. Send to a portion of your segmented list and see which group opened that particular email then send that email to the rest of the group.
3. Don’t use ALL CAPS or exclamation points!!!!
This is the internet’s version of yelling at your customers. Most customers don’t want to be yelled at, right? Using all capitalized letters and too many exclamation points makes your emails look spammy. Many ISPs will also flag your email as spam if you overuse exclamation points. The majority of email readers favor standard format text without a lot of extra noise, so be respectful and people will be more likely to trust your message.
4. Avoid using spam-trigger words and phrases
Email spam filtering tools have become a necessity today. If your email contains spam-trigger words, then the chance of it landing in someone’s inbox is very slim. The high volume of emails people receive daily is the main reason for this. Many businesses use email as their primary way to communicate with potential and existing customers. So if you plan to use email effectively for your business then you need to play by the rules.
Words and phrases that you should avoid using in your emails.
| 100% | Cheap | Extra | Multi-level marketing |
| Risk-free | #1 | Fast cash | No cost |
| Sale | $$$ | Claims | For just $xxx |
| Sample | Satisfaction | Save $ | Save up to |
| Serious cash | Solution | Spam | Subscribe |
| Success | Take action | This isn’t spam | Trial |
| Unlimited | Urgent | While supplies last | Why pay more? |
| Win | No fees | No hidden costs | No investment |
| Not spam | Now | Offer | One time mailing |
| Only | Order now | Price | Profit |
| Promise | Purchase | Quote | Rates |
| Refund | Request | Free | Get it now |
| Get paid | Great | Guaranteed | Income |
| Increase your sales | Instant | Insurance | Internet marketing |
| Investment | Limited | Lowest price | Marketing |
| Miracle | Money back | Clearance | Click below |
| Click here | Collect | Compare rates | Congratulations |
| Cost | Credit | Deal | Debt |
| Discount | Don’t delete | Double your income | Earn |
| Easy terms | Expire | Act now | Action |
| AD | Additional income | Affordable | All-natural |
| Apply now | Avoid | Bargain | Best price |
| Big bucks | Bonus | Buy | Cash |
| Certified | Chance |
5. Personalization goes a long way
Personalize your email subject lines to get more opens. Try adding the readers’ names, locations, or other personalized details. A persons’ name is the sweetest sound in the world to them. If you can find a way to include it in your messages your subject line, as a result you will almost always receive a higher open rate.
6. Send from a person’s name
Readers prefer emails that come from a person’s name rather than those from the name of the company. Despite the fact that the email comes from the company as a whole. It makes them feel special that they’re talking to a specific person, not the whole company. But be sure to include your company’s name in the salutation to avoid confusion.
7. Focus on your readers’ pain points
Don’t focus on the benefits that your product can provide. Instead, divert your focus on the readers’ pain points. If you hit their pain points, they may open and read your email.
8. Use alliteration
Want to break up the dullness of a full inbox? Use alliteration to make your message more memorable. But don’t overuse it.
9. Take advantage of the seasons
Craft seasonal subject lines. Include the current season to take advantage of your readers’ holiday mood. Christmas is the most favorable season for the majority of businesses because people are already planning on spending money. However, there is almost always some season or reason to celebrate. Savvy marketers use catchy seasonal subject lines to really improve the bottom line no matter what time of year they choose to use it.
10. Use numbers
Using numbers in your email subject lines help increase click-through rates. Just like in blog titles, numbers are also effective in subject lines. It gives your readers a clear idea of what they can expect from your product.
Make your preview text more appealing
Arguably the 2nd most important part of your email message is the “preview text”. Although technically, the preview text is not part of the subject line, it appears beside or below it.
Email clients automatically set “preview text” when rendering it in the reader’s inbox. It’s done by selecting the first few words of the body of the message. Obviously this can be messy.
From a Marketers perspective, it’s important to be able to specifically craft a message for the medium. Here are 2 tips on how to set your own preview text and make it more appealing to your readers.
1. Use the default
- Keep in mind that you will be editing the first 9-14 words of the body.
- Text must be optimized to play a dual role. 1. As preview text that will be read in conjunction with your subject line and 2. the first few words of your email message.
- Meta text from images and links will be used as your preview text if the image or link appears first in the email. This should be avoided at all cost. Not only does it look ugly and confusing, it will also reduce open rates.
2. Use specified preview text
- Create a text section that is intended to be read before the body of the email. This is primarily used in HTML emails by including a preheader to the message.
- Preheaders are simple short text that are shown to users at the very top of the email.
- It’s often a small font size because it’s not the main headline for the email. Using a small non-distracting font will allow you to craft nice preview text without taking away from your email body.
3. Hide it
- This is a modification to the method above using a preheader that is not easily visible to the reader.
- Make the font blend into the header image or background color. Do this by matching the font color to the background of your email.
- Use a very very small font size. Ideally either the same color as your background or a complementary color that is not distracting.
Perfect your timing
Just like almost everything else in life, timing is important in the world of email marketing. Here is a simple trick that will help you perfect your timing and increase your email open rates.
First consider who am I marketing to? Then guess when they might read their emails.
If that seems too simple for you, take the next step and create user personas (AKA buyer personas).
In order to be really successful this exercise will require you to envision at least 3 different scenarios that describe your reader. It’s important to be able to describe your user personas clearly, so it is typical to give the persona a name that embodies them.
Next try to imagine the lifestyle of your personas. Are they up early? How do they spend their time? Etc. Take some time and get to know your persona.
In general, the best time to send emails is mid-morning on weekdays. However it varies depending on the age, location, and occupation of the persona. So it’s logical to adjust the day and time of sending based on the above factors.
Conclusion
The above tips and tricks are proven to help you maximize your email open rates. You can combine any of them in your email marketing campaigns easily with Panels.
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