Your email subject line is the first thing your subscriber sees in their inbox, and that can be the moment they decide to open it, ignore it or delete it. There is a risk that as designers we can spend all our time battling with rendering problems in Outlook or css in Gmail, and not even consider the subject line.
So we’ve dug up this little collection of links to help you and your clients craft more effective subject lines. Next time you send a campaign, spend a little more time working with your client on that subject line, and compare your open rates with previous attempts.
Friday links: Improve your subject lines
- Writing Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines for the Web – by Jakob Nielsen
- The Art of the Subject Line – by Brad Berens
- Getting the Subject Line Right – by Gail Goodman
We’ve left the best for last – over at CopyBlogger, Brian Clark is taking headlines and rewriting them to be more effective. It’s not specific to email subject lines, but Brian explains his process, and you can learn a lot from his approach.
If you have written a really successful subject line (or a spectacularly unsuccessful one!) , leave us a comment below.