Some advice from the pros: Spend Time on the Subject Line
The trick to getting people to read your email is to first get them to open it, says Ken Wisnefski, CEO of WebiMax, an Internet marketing firm headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
Think of your own email habits. Do you, as Wisnefski suggests, prioritize your email inbox based on these categories: family, then friends, then coworkers, then everyone else (a category that includes marketers)?
If you’re in that “everyone else” category, says Wisnefski, you have “about four to six words to
impress people enough to click on your email.”
“Sometimes a brief glance at a subject line is all you will get,” he says. It’s important to make that brief glance impactful. Two great elements to include in your subject line are humor and urgency, says Wisnefski. That can be tough for some, he admits. “Barring those elements, you have to suppose that your recipients have been looking for what you are marketing at one time or another, and it’s up to you to remind them. This requires you to have faith in the quality of your
lead gathering operation.”
That’s a good point and stresses an important factor for most email marketers. You’re communicating with people who you, in many cases, already have a connection with, and that can work to your advantage.