The author’s point was, be careful about these types of headlines because they often lead you to articles that lack substance. The articles are usually just recycled information, he claimed.

What the author failed to mention is: Numbers in titles work. And in headlines and email subject lines too. They work. That’s why we use them.

Perusing a bunch of unopened emails just now, we noticed two—one on top of the other—that both had subject lines starting with 5. One started “5 Ways…” and the other started “5 Must-Have…” imagine looking in your inbox and seeing two bolded subject lines, one on top of the other, both starting with the number 5. Odd, right? Not really. Numbers work.

Writing email subject lines is a tricky business, and an important one. After all, the email subject line is one of two factors recipients consider when deciding whether or not to open your email (the other is the From address). Ironically, in the world of email copywriting, it’s probably the part of most email marketing campaigns that gets the least attention, but arguably has the most impact.

It might seem trite. It might seem overdone and overused. It might seem too easy. But numbers in email subject lines work.

Not to say that author might have been right! It could be that the bulk of articles headlined with numbers are recycled, irrelevant information. But in the email marketing world, numbers work in email subject lines.

But it’s still up to us to make sure our email marketing content is relevant, timely and useful, even if with a killer email subject line.

The “From” line might be.

Email subject lines are researched, debated and tested, but how many email marketers are putting enough thought into whom the email is really “from”? In our never-ceasing quest to be the email marketing vendor who keeps you in the know on all the various ways to improve your email marketing ROI, we’ve put a lot of thought into the From line. Here are three tips to help you do a better job with that critical piece of your next email marketing campaign:

1. Don’t use personal name unless it’s a name the recipient will know. An email from Barack Obama would likely get opened due to name recognition. But not one from Ted Smith.

2. Instead, use your company name like ClickMail Marketing. Or if you have a product or brand name that’s better known than your company name, use that. The point is: Use the name that your recipients will recognize.

3. Note that some email clients show the actual email address in the From line. Just like you shouldn’t use a person’s name if it won’t be recognize, don’t use an email address that won’t be recognized either. Instead of marco@clickmailmarketing.com, make it something that hints at what the email is about like sales@, support@, newsletter@ or greatdeals@.

Now the next time you’re schmoozing at a marketing cocktail party, rather than rehashing the email subject line debate, you can bring up the From line and see if anyone knows as much as you do!

Studies are showing that although shorter subject lines (often it’s less 35 characters or seven words) work best for increasing your open rates. But guess what? Longer subject lines are better for increasing your click through rates! And possibly your conversions.

What happens is this: A longer subject line can be more specific and therefore more relevant to a smaller segment of your audience. As a result, fewer people open the email, but those that do are more interested in your offer, and therefore more likely to convert.

I doubt we’ll ever have a guaranteed email subject line length but there’s one thing I can guarantee: The way to know what works is to test, test, test, test. Remember, email marketers, in your world, testing is much more doable than in the print marketer’s world. Take advantage of that ability to boost your email marketing ROI.

For more on how to write an email subject line, see the useful guide from Lyris: “Email Subject Lines: 15 Rules to Write Them Right.” It’s available on the ClickMail Web site at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/pdfs/Lyris_15Rules_for_Subject_Lines.pdf.

Even if you’re diligent about avoiding words like Viagra in your subject line, you can trigger spam filters with little things you probably didn’t even think of, like punctuation.

What’s a smart email marketer to do? Have no fear, here’s a great little tool that any email marketer can use to check an email subject line for spamminess: http://www.localnews.biz/subjectline/validatesubjectline.asp.

Just type in your subject line and the tool will check for word usage, capitalization, punctuation, numbers, length and more. It only takes a minute and might save you a bundle in lost revenue from your next email marketing campaign by making sure you don’t negatively impact your deliverability!