According to Snov.io, in email marketing, you make $42 back for every $1 spent on average.
But, that only happens if people open your emails, to begin with.
So how do you get people to open them? With a strong subject line.
If your open rate is low, or nonexistent, then your subject line isn’t doing its job.
So today, we’re going to tell you how to write a subject line that gets people to open.
Let’s get started!
Why Your Subject Lines Don’t Get Opened
When it comes to writing a subject line, the goal is two-fold:
Enticing the viewer enough to want to open it while remaining on-topic with what the email is actually about.
The problem we see with a lot of subject lines is they’re not doing one or both of these two things.
They’re either not interesting enough to make the viewer want to click on the email,
Or, they’re so outrageous and clickbaity that they do get the click…
…but don’t get the sale because the content of the email doesn’t align with the subject line.
Or there is a third instance where the subject line is again, so clickbaity, that it actually gets directed to spam…
…so the customer never even sees it, to begin with.
The tips we’re sharing today are going to help you avoid all 3 of these scenarios.
And instead, create a subject line that hooks people’s attention and gets them to convert.
Now before we move on, we want to say if you’re entirely new to email marketing…
…we do have an email marketing for beginners post that we would strongly suggest you check out next.
Steps On How To Write A Subject Line That Gets Opened
Step 1: Write down a list of your customer’s goals and pain points.
Step 2: Create a list of email topics you want to send.
Step 3: Write a first draft of your subject line.
Step 4: Go back and add clickbait words.
Step 5: Go back and add emojis if it’s appropriate given your brand voice.
Step 1: Write down a list of your customer’s goals and pain points.
Now if you’ve read our blog for a while, you should be good to go on this step with the amount of times we have told all of you guys to do this.
Writing a list of your customer’s pain points and goals will tell you exactly what your customers care about as it relates to your product or service.
One example we’ve shared before is if you’re a restaurant owner…
…and you keep putting out content about your combo deals or how affordable the meals are, but you’re not getting any foot traffic from it?
It could be that budget is not your audience’s #1 concern. It could be that they care more about the food being fresh, organic, or farm-to-table.
And you would know that if you created a list of your audience goals and pain points based on the research you perform.
So, the same principle applies to your subject lines.
If you’re not getting many opens, then you first need to make sure the topic of your emails includes topics your audience even cares about.
So if you need help getting started with your goals and pain points list, check out our target marketing example and digital marketing for beginners posts next.
Step 2: Create a list of email topics you want to send.
Based on your audience’s goals and pain points, what emails can you send that will resonate with them?
Write down topic ideas that would either show them how to achieve their goals, or help solve a pain point they have.
Now if you want more guidance on the body of the email and what to write there, check out our email marketing blogs here as there are some good tips in there.
But for this post, we want to stay focused on the subject line.
Now we will say, depending on your creative process, it may be easier for you to write the body of the email first and then go back and do the subject line.
Or you may find it easier to write the subject line first- either way, it doesn’t matter.
We personally find it easier to write the body of the email first and then go back and write the subject line accordingly,
But do whatever works best for you.
Either way, once you know what topics you want to focus on in your emails, from there you can start writing the subject line for each email.
Step 3: Write a first draft of your subject line.
Write the topic of the email. Don’t try to make it really juicy and enticing yet, write out a subject line about the body of the email.
Let’s do one together.
Let’s say that you sell yarn and knitting supplies, and are sending an email with a tutorial on how to knit a sweater…
…the first draft of your subject line may read something like, “How to knit a sweater.”
Now that does speak directly to the customer’s goal, but it’s pretty basic, right? Not really exciting to read.
Step 4: Go back and add clickbait words.
Now the trick here is to be clickbaity, shocking, and enticing without being spammy and without lying.
For instance, if the subject line said, “How to knit a sweater in 45 SECONDS!” that might get someone’s attention…
…but it’s also promising more than what’s possible, right?
As far as we know it’s not possible to knit an adult-sized sweater in 45 seconds.
So as soon as someone clicks on that, and starts reading the steps in the email…
…they’re going to realize it takes way longer than 45 seconds and that the subject line lied to them.
That not only is going to cause them to click out of this email marketing campaign…
…but it’s also going to make them want to avoid clicking on any of your future emails. Because the trust has been broken.
So how can we make that subject line clickbaity without lying?
A good tip we have here is to go back and look at your goals and pain points list again.
Yes, the customer’s goal, in this case, is to knit a sweater, but are there any additional goals they have?
Like do they want to do it on a budget? Within a certain time frame? Are they intimidated because it’s their first time?
See how you can tackle other things from the list with clickbait words.
Here are some examples we came up with to make that subject line more enticing.
- How to Knit A Sweater With Only $5 Worth Of Material
- How to Knit the Winner at the Christmas Sweater Party In Time for the Holidays
- How to Knit A Sweater in 5 Steps (even if you’ve never done it before!)
So you can see how these subject lines speak even more directly to the customer’s goal as opposed to just “How to knit a sweater.”
Now we will say before we move on that in the email marketing for beginners post, we share what’s called spam triggers.
Spam triggers are words in your subject line that raise a red flag to email providers…
…that causes the email to be directed to the spam inbox instead of the regular inbox.
And if that happens, your customer is never going to see the email to start with.
So you do want to use clickbait words, but if you’re not familiar with spam triggers, we would again advise you to go check out that post.
That’s because the two can overlap and you don’t want spam triggers in your subject line.
We also share some examples of what spam triggers are in that post so that you can avoid putting them in your email.
Step 5: Go back and add emojis if it’s appropriate given your brand voice.
Depending on the industry you’re in, we would say emojis are more often avoided than they are used.
So when you do use them, they really pop in a user’s inbox.
You can use emojis to enhance your message or you can replace certain words with emojis in the sentence.
In this case of our “How to knit” email, another niche, timely email subject line could’ve been, “How to Knit Taylor A New Scarf” with the red scarf emoji.
If you know, you know.
So if emojis are appropriate for your business and brand voice, we would definitely suggest sprinkling them in every few emails to make your subject lines stand out.
If you want to learn more tips for your email marketing strategy, go ahead and read this post next.
Wrapping Up
And those are our 5 steps on how to write a subject line that will make people open and stick around to read the email after they’ve opened it!
Now if you feel like you just don’t have the time or energy to execute email marketing on your own, we can handle it for you from top to bottom.
Contact us today or check out our email marketing services page to learn more about it!
