Subject lines are a biggie. Aside from brand reputation and customer engagement, this is what the recipient will look at to decide whether to open your email. No pressure, right? Here are our top three tips on how to make the most of those crucial 50 characters. 

Using a first name tag in your subject line. It’s nice to see your recipient as an actual person rather than just an email address and this will help to maintain a positive relationship. Also, according to data by Yes Lifecycle Marketing, personalising email subject lines can increase open rates by 50%. Pretty good, right? One of our favourites is ‘This has got Andrew written all over it’. 

No-one wants their emails to end up in that junk folder. Avoid being marked as spam by steering clear of certain trigger words. These can fall into various categories but the ones we see most often are ones in relation to a discount or a cash incentive including ‘free’, ‘discount’, ‘cheap’, ‘earn cash’, ‘make money’ and also false competition wins: ‘you’ve been selected’ and ‘you’ve won’. 

Providing your database is large enough, split testing your subject lines is always a good idea. You can test different subject lines by sending these to a small percentage of your database first. The platform will select the subject line with the most opens and clicks, then use it on the rest of the broadcast. You should test at least 3 (although our platform allows up to 5) completely different subject lines - there’s no use in split testing 3 subject lines that are very similar. Using this tool will test your customers' preferences and will also increase your overall read rate. It’s a great tool to take learnings from and will help shape your future content. If you’d like to find out more about how to split test your subject lines, check out this article. 

And now onto the main body of your email…

Keep your copy concise, easy to read and make sure it’s a true reflection of your subject line. In a day of age where our thumbs scroll at lightning speed, a long piece of copy is going to get breezed over. Keep it brief and catchy with some strong imagery and you’ll have got yourself a nice email. If you’ve got a lot to say, however, you can get around this by using a CTA button to link out to a blog or somewhere the recipient can find all of that info, should they fancy it. 

Just as your brand comes across in what your emails look like, it should be just as identifiable in the way you write. Make sure you keep a consistent tone of voice across all your emails. Whether this is informal, chatty and full of puns, or if it’s descriptive and professional, stick to it.

Does your email offer value to the recipient? Is it engaging and will it encourage action to be taken off the back of it? These are all things you should consider when writing a marketing email. People have signed up to your database for a reason. Make sure you’re delivering what you promised. This could be exclusive discounts, latest blog posts, or the first to hear about upcoming events. 

And finally, proofread, proofread and proofread again.