How your email subscribers perform over time can have a lot to do with the type of business you’re in, your branding, personal style, and countless other factors. However, if you continue to email your readers with the same type of messaging, dry subject lines, or send only transactional offers, they’re going to quickly get bored with your emails.
With my own personal email campaigns, I typically see open rates in the low 40% range and click rates above 10% with a total community of under 10,000 readers today.
I’m able to achieve well above average email engagement and higher open rates with my community for many different reasons, one of which is certainly my use of clever subject lines that I know my audience will be interested in. Beyond just the subject line and copy of the email, I always offer more in-depth content for them to click through and read, in order to deliver more value. My recent post on the 65 best ideas for side businesses was by far the highest performing email campaign because the email copy delivered directly on the topic point I knew my readers wanted to learn more about.
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about email marketing from several entrepreneurs and marketing experts who’ve been perfecting their craft much longer than myself. One of them is April Bowles-Olin, who recently taught a class on How to Double Your Followers with Creative Marketing here on CreativeLive.
In this video, April shares her 4 best strategies for writing email subject lines that’ll stand out in a crowded inbox.
One of my favorite pieces of advice April urges you to do before sending an email campaign, is to email yourself a test and see how the subject line compares with all of the other marketing emails sitting in your inbox.
Would you click on your email? Does it offer something more compelling than all the other emails sitting in your inbox? How does reading your subject line make you feel?
Asking yourself these questions will help you judge whether or not your subject line is going to be an effective way to win over your audience.
Beyond that, April gives her 4 top tips on how to write the best email subject lines that’ll drive more engagement with your community. Here they are:
1. Make a Promise: Here’s an example, “You’ll Double Your Blog Readership with These 10 Tips.”
2. Highlight a Benefit: Here’s an example, “Learn to Write a Headline Your Twitter Followers Actually Click.”
3. Appeal to Your Reader’s Emotions: Here’s an example, “Why I Gave Up Thousands of Blog Readers and Started Over.”
4. Appeal to Your Reader’s Curiosity: Here’s an example, “The Reason No One Comments on Your Blog Posts.”
All of these email subject line examples tug at different core desires and peak my interest. Check out April’s class on Doubling Your Followers and get more of her marketing tools on not just building your audience, but driving meaningful engagement within your community.
To give you some more insight into exactly what makes a good email subject line, what better way to do so, than to examine real-life examples that have been used by the best email marketers in the world?
Are you tired of trying to keep up with the hot new trends in marketing? Get the skills you need to build a solid marketing plan from marketing expert Tara Gentile–without spinning your wheels! Learn more.
Thankfully, Matt Stack of Local Client Takeover already compiled a massive list of 540 Email Subject Lines from Successful Email Marketers. Matt spent a full year collecting emails from Derek Halpern, Neil Patel, Ryan Deiss, Gary Vaynerchuk, CopyBlogger, and analyzing how they go about writing email subject lines. From Matt’s list, I chose 171 of the best email subject lines and listed them below. But first, some very interesting trends to take note of:
- “How to” appeared 49 times in the original master list.
- “Your” appeared 90 times in the original master list.
- “You” appeared 83 times in the original master list.
- 36 emails had ellipses in them: … or . . .
- Gary Vaynerchuk used emoticons in some of his subject lines.
- Many included specific numbers.
- All caps were used sparingly to emphasize a limited time offer often in a promotional email.
- Exclamation points were not used very frequently.
Stop spinning your wheels. Get the skills you need to build a solid marketing plan! Learn more from marketing expert Tara Gentile.
Digital Marketer: Ryan Deiss (30 Emails) Fwd: Start building your list for just $1 $1 trial expiring tonight… Fwd: $1 trial expiring tonight… How to Build an Unstoppable Business (2nd Edition) Should I unsubscribe you? Am I still welcome in your inbox? I’ve got a gift for you (sssshhhh it’s a surprise ?) ①⓪① ways to boost email open rates TRAFFIC (on a “shoestring” budget) You’re going to miss this?! Sales ⬆︎, Refunds ⬇︎, Retention ⬆︎ Get started for just $1 [TEST RESULTS] 2,689 leads from “On Site Retargeting” Oooh… CONTROVERSY MAJOR announcement! (big changes at DM) This has nothing to do with marketing… 5,219% ROI from new traffic source [48 Hours] Funnel Blueprint closes tomorrow… Create a buying frenzy with these emails Steal this campaign… 36,859 blog subscribers in 91 days Well… this failed miserably This is embarrassing but… Do YOU have a brand? (and why branding is “dumb”) [Test Results] 81% more leads, 38% more sales This critique gets uncomfortable at times Free gift for DM subscribers… Here’s what you’re missing… 1,322,956 free clicks from… The 6 billion dollar man? Quicksprout – Neil Patel (49 Emails) The Complete Guide to Google Penalties (Both Manual and Algorithmic) 28 WordPress Plugins That Increase Profits and Save Time Be a Better Copywriter: 7 Lessons From 4 Legendary Books Don’t Get Fooled: 17 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO Company 18 Tools for Better Content Creation: Improve Your Writing with Less Effort A Step by Step Guide to Modern Broken Link Building The $100,000 Challenge: July Update The Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing Any Google Penalty 5 Ways to Increase Your Pageviews Per Visitor by 23.52% 28 Browser Extensions That Make an SEO’s Life Easier How to Cut Your Bounce Rate in Half with Interactive Content From Beginner to Pro: A Complete Guide to Tripling Your Email Conversion Rate The $100,000 Challenge: June Update 13 Important Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Blogging The Day After: 11 Things to Do After You Publish a Post Why We Like, Comment, and Share on Facebook How to Get Your Slice of Reddit’s 150 Million Pageviews Guest-Posting on Steroids: A 4-Step Blueprint That the Top Guest Posters Use Stop Guessing: Here’s a Social Media Strategy That Works How KISSmetrics Grew to 793,858 Visitors a Month by Using One Simple Formula How to Improve Your Facebook’s Organic Reach 10 Ways to Make Your “Most Popular Posts” More Popular How Blogging Affects Your Bottom Line 7 Tips for Increasing Your Click-Through Rates on Facebook Why Transparency Is The New Marketing How to Create The Perfect Social Media Post How to Build a Million Dollar Business From Your Personal Brand 10 Marketing Predictions You Should Prepare for in 2015 What Are The Best Times to Post on Social Media How to Keep Your Readers on Your Blog Longer Don’t Blog Unless You Use These 11 Tools How Google Crawls and Indexes Web Pages 100 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Blogging How a Ferrari Made Me a Million Bucks The 10 Key Elements of a High Quality Website How Spending $162,301.42 on Clothes Made Me $692,500 How I Reached 100,000 Visitors with These 7 Rules How to Write a Great Value Proposition What I Learned from Fighting a 12-Month-Long Lawsuit How to Structure a Perfect LinkedIn Profile How to Structure a Perfect SEO Optimized Page How to Get 247% More People to Read Your Content Running out of Topics to Blog about? Follow These 5 Simple Steps How to Influence Purchasing Decisions How I Generated $25,000 with 249 Comments What SEO Used to Be Versus What SEO Is Now A/B Testing For Beginners: 70 Resources to Get You Started Should You Repost Your Blog Content on Other Websites? A Data Driven Answer How to Create Content That Drives Lots of Organic Traffic The Ultimate Content Marketing Checklist: 40 Questions to Ask Yourself before Publishing Your Next Blog Post There you have it. Those are the 171 best email subject lines from some of the top email marketing experts in the business. For more on the strategy of choosing great subject lines and email marketing best practices for your business, join Effective Email Marketing and Double Your Followers here on CreativeLive. Now, how are you going to shake things up with your emails?
Prevent burn out! Hire the right people to grow your business. Learn more.
