Email Subject Line Best Practices Include Honesty
Add this to your list of email subject line best practices: Be honest.
Your subject line is the second factor people consider when deciding whether or not to open your email. (The first is the From line.) Obviously, your subject line is critical to your email marketing ROI for that reason.
But that does not translate into get them to open the email at all costs, even if that means lying in the subject line.
Think about the spam you get, and how blatant those subject lines lies are, like the trickery of “How are you?” Yes, it will get you to open the email, because that subject line will have you wondering, “Who is this?” But then you feel cheated after you open it, right? And realize you fell for their ruse?
You’re guilty of that too, if your email subject lines aren’t quite honest. If you get someone to open your email by tricking them, you increase your open rate, but decrease your trust factor.
Is it worth that tradeoff?
Wordtracker sent an email recently with this subject line: “Bar brawls, industrial espionage and keyword research!”
That’s an attention getter! And it looked like it could easily be a trick. But it wasn’t. It really was part of their message.
As we’ve recently brought up, some in the email marketing industry seem to have an obsession with open rates to the point where they are willing to be if not quite dishonest, not quite truthful either.
I say, you’re getting a short-term gain (opens) at the risk of a long-term pain (unsubscribes or, worse, spam complaints).
If you can’t follow the email subject line best practices of being honest, maybe you need to rethink your offer in the first place? Or your relevance?
