Subject Lines That Work
Published 29 Jul 2013
Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to skim through your inbox and glean some wisdom from the heavy hitters. You can usually figure out why some emails made it to your inbox and how they got your attention. You can also see if they use a subject line technique that you can replicate. On the happy side of my spam filter, my inbox was peppered with goodies like these:
Wyndham Rewards: Register for your movie tickets, Kristin
Hotwire Deals: For you, Kristin: (location redacted) hotels from $121, (location 2 redacted) hotels from $83, plus…
US Airways – Dividend Miles: April mileage specials just for you
One trend I adore: personalization and personal touches. They either added my name, said “for you,” or used their data to tailor the subject line to my preferences.
Hotwire went the extra mile by including items based on previous Hotwire searches – a form of personalization that is an increasingly popular email marketing technique (and might I add, fairly easy to pull off using your reports and some ingenuity). The email from Wyndham Rewards probably wouldn’t get opened. I just don’t need movie tickets right now and am not sure why I’d get them from a hotel company without an added incentive. US Airways might get opened, but only if there I had a use for those mileage specials.
Your inbox likely offers excellent ideas to build subject lines that work. Observe how you interact with the emails that appear in your inbox. Take note of what gets your attention and what does not. The next time you are stumped on a subject line strategy, you know where to go fishing for clues.