An average person receives 100 to 120 emails a day. With our inboxes overflowing with unread emails, you might wonder – Is sending email newsletters an effective way to communicate with your audience? The answer is …. Absolutely! You just need to write a great subject line that will radically reduce the risk of ending up in SPAM with no chance of being read.
First things first- what’s a subject line?
A subject line is the first thing that your recipient will see in their inbox. To help your email stand out, your subject line needs to communicate the value, tell your subscribers how the email will benefit them, and build trust. A boring subject line will get lost in your audience’s inboxes as the readers will not be inspired to open the email. I’ll share with you three tips that will help you to write subject lines that will drastically increase your email open rates.
1. Keep the subject line simple
The main purpose of writing a simple subject line is to clearly convey your message. As a new writer, I would spend hours generating captivating subject lines for my emails. The trick, I’d learned from several years of reading marketing books, was to provoke. So I did. But my open rates went down with every subsequent email.
I discovered that cheap tricks only work once or twice on customers. They prefer it when you go straight to the point. No fluff. No provoking. No fake promises. Just simple truthful words.
My best results so far came from the following subject line: “Take 20% off with code LOVE20.” We had the most engagement and secured a lot more sales than our older emails. Simple is best.
2. Create some urgency
To write a captivating subject line, you also need to creatively and strategically communicate a sense of urgency and scarcity. We are inherent procrastinators. If people are given a choice, they will always choose to put things off until later….unless it’s urgent and FOMO is at play.
To create a sense of urgency, you can be specific about an upcoming deadline and the benefits that will be received by acting now and not later. I recently wrote the following email subject line for my clients: “Your 20% Father’s Day promo code expires in two days.” Though this is a relatively simple and direct subject line, I noticed that many people opened and read it, because it creates a sense of urgency. But be careful not to rely on these tactics too often, though. They will only work if you use them when they are genuinely needed, or else people might not trust your brand.
3. Desired outcome subject line
You can also increase your open rates by aligning the email subject to your target audience’s desired outcomes. To understand your target audience’s needs, conduct research to understand their needs, preferences, and the language that they respond to. Then, write a subject line that appeals to them. If it’s about the desired outcome of what your readers want, they are going to open your emails.
To make this strategy work, emphasize with your prospects and think about what they want. For example, if you are messaging marketers who need to get their sales up you can write a subject line like, “Do you want to generate more sales?”
Conclusion
If you write an impactful subject line, more people will read your emails and you’ll be able to build more trust and attract more customers. To instantly increase the number of people opening your emails, I recommend the following strategies:
- Keep the subject line simple
- Create a sense of urgency
- Write a desired outcome subject line
Contact us to help you write newsletters that your target audience will be happy to open. We can also help you create blogs that drive traffic to your website and help generate valuable leads.