Writing email subject lines is something of an art form that only a few businesses really gauge and understand the secrets of. Even small changes can have a massive effect on open rates and give your business that extra flair!

Here are a few tips that can help your open rates on your email marketing campaigns:

Keep it short

Shorter subject lines consistently do better than long ones. Ideally you want to try to stay below 50 characters. The trick is communicating everything you need without over doing it, and this is something you’ll learn with practice. Do a test and limit yourself to 50 characters for your next few emails and see what happens!

Tell, don’t sell

Your customers, although they’re your customers, they don’t like being sold to, that’s a fact! If your subject line is the least bit “salesy”, chances are it will go straight to the deleted folder. What you want to do instead is engage your readers (or rather give them a hint) about what’s inside. It should be something that gets them curious enough to open your email.

Personalise if possible

A personalised subject line will always grab better open rates than its one-size-fits-all standard subject lines. Don’t think just inserting the first name of the recipient is enough though, because it’s not. Actually doing that can even have the complete opposite effect, as most people have gotten wise to this technique and now consider it spam. What you can do, however, is mention something like their city, their occupation or whatever other data you have that could be relevant. Make it personal.

Controversy is still powerful

Readers can’t help but feel drawn to controversy or a drama, so if you can construct a subject line that has some of that they’ll be jumping at the chance of opening the email to see what it’s all about.

Use shortage techniques

A trick that’s been used since the dawn of advertising is telling readers there are “only 48 hours left on the sale” or “just a few hours left before we raise prices again”. The fact is these techniques work, but you need to be honest about it. Don’t go telling your readers or customers that you’re increasing prices when you’re actually not, because that will lead to a backlash sooner or later. If you can back up your sales pitch and you have something people are actually interested in, this can boost your open rates through the roof.

Always split-test your subject lines

Don’t forget to always split test your subject lines to find the ideal strategies for your business. By doing this you can improve your subject lines with every email you send out.  You will understand your audience better and it can increase your conversions.

These are just a few ways in which you can write better email subject lines to boost your conversions and open rates.