Get Better Open Rates with These 5 Subject Line Best Practices

A successful email marketing campaign starts with an attention grabbing subject line that entices your clients to open the email and read through your content. Great subject lines are descriptive, personal and give the recipient a reason to open the email.

Get better open rates with these five subject line best practices.

Personalize It

Use merge tags to personalize subject lines with each person's name or their location. Personalization has proved to increase open rates for most recipients, and it works well when trying to target certain locations or neighborhoods. You want your recipient to feel as though they are more than just a name on a roster of people – add in a personal touch to become more relatable to them. No one wants to open an email they assume is a mass email sent to everyone in the sender's contact list.

Be Descriptive

This is tricky – you want to be descriptive enough to let the recipient know what the email is about, but you also don't want to give away everything in the subject line. Think of it like a book title. You want to entice the person to read the book, without giving away the ending in the title. Be direct, but be descriptive.

Count Characters

More people now check their email on their phone than they do on the computer, which means long subject lines may not be as effective. There is no sweet spot for subject line character count, but try to keep your audience in mind and really get to the point. The shorter the subject lines the better, but make sure you are giving them enough information to be intrigued.

A great way to find out what works best for your audience is to do A/B tests on the subject line using different lengths. Typically, experts say to keep email subject lines under 50 characters – these have the higher open rates.

Use Digits

Incorporate numbers into subject lines to increase open rates. Our brains naturally are drawn to numbers and figures, which is why you always see lists on the cover of magazines and in blog posts. Lists are easier for our brains to process and the spark curiosity. Placing numbers in your email subject line will help your email stand out from the others in your recipients' inboxes.

Engage with Questions

Implement a question to encourage your reader to open the email to find the answer. The nature of posing a direct question to your audience piques the recipient's curiosity and compels them to want to figure out what the answer is.

Email can be a powerful tool for connecting with and converting leads to clients and the first step is to write the perfect subject line using these five best practices.

To view the original article, visit the Wise Agent blog.