The open rate of your email message is nearly 100% dependent upon your subject line. Your potential customers typically spend less than two seconds deciding if they want to read your message. Which means that you have to use compelling subject lines to be a successful email marketer.
Here are 12 tips for creating better subject lines:
1. Communicate fast, just like on an outer envelope. Use 40- 50 characters or less.
2. Mention your primary benefit in the subject line. You must motivate the reader to read your note now.
3. Build your subject line around your desired action. If you're selling a webinar, include date/subject/registration in subject line. If you're selling product, include price savings in the subject line.
4. Write your subject lines first, then create your email marketing message to complement the subject line. The number one mistake of most email marketers is a last-minute subject line.
5. Only use personalization in subject line if you already have a business relationship with the recipients of your email message.
6. Give urgent reason to act now. Examples include "order by x date", "offer ends tomorrow at 6 pm", "registration deadline is today".
7. Be specific. Use phrase such as "Get up to 80% off" rather than "Save money".
8. You can use the word "free" with caution by following these guidelines:
* Don't make "free" the first word in your subject line.
* Don't use exclamation point such as Free!
* Don't spell out FREE in all caps
9. If use the word "complimentary" instead of "free", make sure it's spelled correctly. Many email marketers incorrectly use the word "complementary", which has a completely different meaning.
10. Test your subject lines continuously to find the winner for you. Make sure to send each version of subject line to at least 5000 email addresses.
11. Look at newspaper headlines and magazine covers for ideas on how to express ideas quickly with great appeal.
12. Use software to check the spam score of your subject line and body copy prior to sending email message. Then make changes as needed.
Contactology has free software tool which allows you to quickly determine a message's quality and deliverability.
Learn more about creating more effective email subject lines from these sources:
*
Email Marketing Resources from Lyris *
3 Ways to Write Better Subject Lines*
"All About Creative" book from Direc MarketingIQ
The best way to improve results from email marketing 
is to improve the appeal and responsiveness of your
subject lines. Better subject lines immediately lead to
higher open rates, which will increase the number of
people who click through to your website.
In my work as a list broker I see every day that the companies which have the most success with email marketing continually seek to improve their subject lines. The companies who give little attention to subject lines continue to struggle with their emailings.
Here are 10 tips which you can begin to use with your next email marketing campaign. These tips can be used for emailings to both consumer and business markets.
10. Include an emotional or wishful benefit such as "Take a few days off to grow your business."
9. Include name of company whose product or service is being promoted in the message.
8. Use personalization by first name only if you have a relationship with the recipient.
7. Use "your" or "you" to increase relevance to the reader.
These 6 below are from Lisa Sparks of Constant Contact and her excellent article "6 Tips for Better Subject Lines: Get your emails opened with attention-grabbing taglines"
6. Test your subject lines
5. Think of your subject line as a tweet.
4. Encourage action
3. Get inspired
2. Include numbers
1. List your audience's hot topics
Direct Magazine online recently featured an article by
Stefan Pollard called "
Three Vital Elements of E-mail to Test".
In this article Stefan explains in simple terms how and why to test these elements of an email message:
1. Audience segmentation -- do A/B splits on variables such as customer vs. prospect; or what type of product purchased.
2. Subject line -- test brand-specific vs. action-oriented vs. benefit-driven subject lines.
3. Call to action -- test the action which you want reader to take; the words you use to describe the action; the way the call to action looks (fonts, image, location)
I'll add two more key elements where testing has improved the results from email marketing campaigns for clients of Hippo Direct:
1. Transmission time -- can test both the time of day and day of week. Most marketers get the best response with either a 10 am or 11 am Eastern transmit time on Tuesday thru Thursday. But I know of technology-related marketers who get their best response with a 3 am Eastern transmit time; and marketers to Europe who email at 6 am Eastern time, which is 10 am London time.
2. Graphic images used in message -- can test messages with and without image. When photos of people are used, test pictures which feature various combinations of age, gender and ethnicity. In many cases, the choice of photo is made by a designer at an advertising agency. The smart marketer will always test various photos to determine which one is best for their target audience.
In our role as mailing list broker we order email lists daily for our clients. We continue to see several easily correctable mistakes on email message copy, including:
1. Subject line which is a statement, rather than description of reader benefit. The most important words of your campaign are the subject line. You've got about 2 seconds to capture reader's attention and make them want to open your message. Subject lines need to be loaded with keywords that trigger an action from the reader.
2. Graphic image is too large and occupies most of first screen when displayed. Not only does a large graphic increase your score as a possible spammer, many readers have images turned off in their email reader. Which means the large graphic appears as a blank space. Imagine buying a billboard ad and using only 15% of the space. That's exactly what many email marketers do when they use large graphics at the top of their messages.
3. Message copy has no clear call-to-action. The first two lines of your text are most critical to explain what you have to offer the reader. These two lines also serve as the snippet part of text that many email readers see in their preview pane.
4. Links in message are to home page, not to a specific landing page which matches the offer in the message. If you've captured a reader's interest to the point where they've read your message and clicked on link -- then the first page they see on your web site must allow them to sign up, order, register, or do whatever action is the goal of your marketing campaign.
5. Very large font size and/or multiple colors used on fonts. These reveal a lack of professionalism, hurt readership among business executives, and increase possible spammer scores.
For more tips on designing email messages, check out the Email Design No-No's Guide for Non-Designers published by Lyris, Inc.
When evaluating subject lines for possible use in email messages, send email notes to yourself using each subject line. But don't check your email immediately. Instead, wait an hour so that you can view the messages in midst of the other email messages which you receive from others.
This free technique provides you with several benefits:
* You see the message exactly as it appears to those on your email list
* When you view message as part of your regular in box check you'll notice immediately the subject lines with most appeal
* You get quick check of spam filter to make sure the subject line doesn't cause message to go to junk e-mail folder
Bonus tip: Make sure to share your proposed subject lines with the naughtiest thinker in your office to see if any of the words have sexual innuendo. We know of one travel-related campaign that was ruined because of the phrase "Dirtiest Hotels".
For more words to avoid in your subject lines, check this article from Marketing Profs called "The Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say in Email Subject Lines (Plus 100 Others You Shouldn't Use, Either)"