Email subject line

Email subject, also called subject line, is the phrase chosen by the sender of the campaign and a brief description that will promote the content of the message, without users even having to open the email.

In fact, the subject line is one of the most important elements of any email, but not everyone gives it the importance it deserves. The email subject line is one of the few elements that are visible in the email inbox before it is opened, along with the sender’s name and the email preheader.

1. Aspects you should consider when writing an email subject line

As its main mission is to provide a preview of the email content itself, it is essential to create an attractive email subject line that encourages the email recipient to open it.
If you fail to capture the recipient’s attention, the email will certainly not be opened, and your email marketing or mass mailing campaign will not be effective, registering a very low open rate.
Some aspects you should bear in mind when creating a subject line are:

• Avoid writing the entire subject line in capital letters, so as not to end up in the spam folder.
• Avoid excessive use of exclamations, currency symbols ($ or €) and inverted commas, so as not to end up in spam.
• Personalize the subject line by including the subscriber’s name, which will increase the recipient’s confidence.
• Try to keep the subject line to less than 60 characters, as this improves the delivery rate.
• Use emojis, but not more than one, or your message could be considered as spam.
• Avoid very generic subjects so as not to go unnoticed.

2. The subject according to the brand

It may seem obvious, but depending on your brand, email marketing campaigns should have a different profile. It’s not the same to receive an email from a brand you know and like, than to receive an email from another brand that, although you don’t hate it, you don’t have a close relationship with.
Therefore, when creating the subject line for an email marketing campaign, we will define two different guidelines: whether we are a brand known by the recipient or whether we are not.

– Brand well known by the recipient. When the person receiving our email knows our brand, they know what content we’re sending and probably have a good idea of what they’ll find. In this case, you should try to include the following in your subject lines:

• Arouse curiosity.
• Be entertaining.
• Try to generate a sense of urgency.
• Use questions.

– Promoting a brand that is not well known. On the other hand, there is the situation where the contact doesn’t know us very well yet and we have to gain their trust. In this case, we have to write subject lines for our email marketing campaigns that:

• Are very clear and honest about the content, never misleading.
• Are brief, but not too brief.
• Encourage the recipient to take action.

This doesn’t mean that it’s not important to generate curiosity, urgency and even amusement in subject lines, but in this case, it should be done more carefully if possible.