As a small business owner who sends emails to your customers or an email marketer creating campaigns for your clients, you may have thought, "It's just a subject line. It's no big deal — right?"

Quite the contrary, you may be critically wrong in this assumption. The overall effectiveness of your email campaign may hinge on these few words that compose the email's subject line.

Understanding why Subject Lines are so Important
The number of emails that we all receive daily is causing an information overload for everyone, your clients included. 

Readers' attention spans are — to say the least — limited at best. The subject line of your message is the all-to-important hook for your message. If that hook is not crafted correctly with an intriguing statement, you can probably see your emails end up in the unread sections of your engagement reports.

Suppose the subject line of your message does not capture a recipient's attention and pique their interest. In that case, they may dismiss the email of its relevance — even though the message's content may contain valuable and helpful information.

Guidelines for Creating Impactful Subject Lines
Here are some guidelines that you can use to emphasize the importance imparted by the subject lines in your email. 

Tactics for crafting this content may vary. However, keeping these guidelines in mind can help you dramatically improve your campaign's engagement results.

1. First and foremost, the all-important Email Open Rate
   It is estimated that 47% of people say they open an email because of the subject line alone. Surmounting this hurdle is the first task for demonstrating a successful email marketing campaign. Testing your subject line with A/B splits is a great way to see if your message resonates effectively with recipients. https://blog.capterra.com/6-email-marketing-best-practices/
    
2. Brevity is critical. 
   Marketo completed a study on the optimal lengths of the subject line and found that 41 characters, or seven words, seems to be a sweet spot for email subject line length, which is about ten characters less than the average subject line. https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/email-subject-line-length-works-best.html
    
3. Hook the reader with an engaging message. 
   Subject lines must sound exciting and provide the necessary prompts to get the reader to open the message. Stay away from clichés and over-used words. The intent is to present your audience with a message that will capture their attention and incentivize them to learn more about your product or service by opening the email.
    
4. What's the point of someone opening an email if no expressed value is offered?
   Providing a promise of value creates importance in the reader's mind and will hopefully prompt them to open and read the email.
    
5. Leverage the Preview Text of the Subject Line
   If you test your subject line on different devices, you will see that some email clients offer the option for preview text. The rule-of-thumb for the preview text is like subject lines. Keep the subject line message short and to the point, usually between 40-140 characters.
    
6. Create a Sense of urgency.
   Nothing gets a reader's attention when a sense of urgency is part of the message. Especially if the subject matter is vital to them, creating a message with a sense of urgency may prompt the reader to take more notice and open your email.
    
7. Be sure to build trust with your reader. 
   Phishing emails are the worst, and you will want to avoid this label at all costs. Providing a false promise or bloated offering will likely turn off the reader and spoil any future engagements. Be sure to create a relevant message with your reader that will ensure they look forward to receiving emails from you in the future.

Though they may appear inconsequential, subject lines, if given the proper attention, appropriately crafted, and creatively composed, can reap great benefits of engagement for your email marketing campaign. 

If you have any comments or would like to respond to this post, please feel free to do so. I would love to receive your feedback.