Subject lines are like the web page headline for your email messages.

They determine whether or not people read anything else.

Think how often you delete emails based on the subject line alone – you never get any further!

Your email subscribers are the same…

Which means the subject line of your emails is critical.

When you get it right, the number of people reading your messages will sky rocket.

When you get it wrong, there might as well be tumbleweed running across your computer screen.

Most autoresponders allow you to monitor the open rate for your emails – which is a “best guess” on their part for the number of people who went into the email message, whether or not they actually read it – and you can set them to record the clicks made to links inside your emails.

Personally, I don’t hold much store with open rates. They depend on a small image pixel being displayed and by no means all email software displays those images. Plus. even if they are triggered, that doesn’t mean people did anything more than click inside the message.

But they do give you a clue, so they may be worth checking every now and then.

But I do pay more attention to the clicks through to whichever page I wanted my subscribers to go to.

That requires real action – much more than just looking at an email – and, for me, means a lot more.

It’s almost impossible to know in advance, which subject line will get the most response.

That statement is true for any headline and I’ve been to seminars where the speaker shows the audience two separate headlines and asks them to vote on which one pulled more response. The audience almost always gets it wrong!

And that’s the equivalent of “ask the audience” which, more often than not, gets the answer right on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, especially with the lower level answers.

If you have a big enough email list (a few hundred upwards) then you can – and should – test email subject lines to see which gets the best response.

If you don’t have a big email list yet, you can’t reliably test. Check out statistical significance if you want the gory details on this but that’s the executive summary.

Which means you need to use your gut reaction on your emai subject lines.

Take a minute or two and go through the subjects on the emails you’ve received recently.

Include the ones you’ve almost automatically deleted.

And the ones you’ve opened or read.

There’ll be a common factor once you’ve looked at a few.

Chances are, the ones that start with your name – even though that’s suggested in a lot of email classes – are the ones you deleted. Your friends don’t normally include your name in the subject name, so strongly consider whether or not you should include a name in the subject line (my preference is not to do that).

Capitalisation is also a good element to test.

If you were writing a sales letter, chances are you’d Capitalise Almost Every Word in the Headline like I’ve just done.

But if you were tapping out an email to a friend, you wouldn’t do that. It would just look dumb unless you were doing it for emphasis.

Test whether or not your subject lines should be in sentence or title case.

I’m mixed on this:

• The marketer in me says it’s a headline, put it in headline case
• The email recipient in me says that headline case gives me another subconscious trigger to hover over the delete button

There’s no right answer!

Apart from testing – the response you get from your list will tell you which they typically react better to.

Another trick that’s often used is to put “Re:” at the start of the subject.

Most email programs put that in when you reply.

It’s actually Latin but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s normal for it to happen.

And it’s often used in email messages on the assumption that most people will assume you’re replying to something they sent.

My gut reaction is to use it only occasionally as I think people will get wise fast if you’re using it too often.

The other giveaway that it’s not really a reply is the high likelihood that you won’t be quoting anything the other person said when you “reply”. Because you’re not really replying!

So if you use that, use it sparingly.

Another subject line tactic that I personally hate goes along the lines that I’m too late or I’ve missed the opportunity.

Personally, nothing gets me to unsubscribe faster.

Because if I’ve missed the opportunity, there’s nothing I can do about it apart from hope the opportunity will crop up again. But if I really wanted something, I’d have bought it. Always assuming I didn’t think it was false scarcity but that’s another issue completely.

Which means that, again, I’d suggest that you’re very cautious about sending “you’ve missed the boat” style subject lines if you use them at all.

If you’d like more help with email subject lines and email campaign writing in general, click here.