A little strategy and testing can go a long way in improving your current subject lines to capture your reader’s attention and leave them feeling compelled to read your email.

1 – Personlization

Yes, you can easily slip in the name of the receiver in the subject line. “Bob, we have a special registration offer for you.” But, every one is doing that, so what else can you personalize to stand out in the flooded inbox? How about member engagement? “Bob, we have a special offer for you since you attended last year.”

2 – Urgency

Urgency has long been known as one of the best ways to motivate people into action. This is true for email marketing because readers are typically scanning a full inbox and looking for reasons to delete messages. A time-sensitve offer could be what it takes to keep your email in the inbox. Even better, the reader will be more likely to read it now instead of putting it off.

3 – Testing & Measuring Results

You don’t have to hire an outside agency to test and measure your email marketing. A very simple A/B test can help you determine what types of subject lines get better results for your audience. For this type of testing, send the same email to two groups of recipients with a different subject line. For example:

• Email Subject Line A: Top-selling eBooks on Sale Now
• Email Subject Line B: Info-packed eBooks at Lowest Prices

You can also test making one subject line specific and the other general:

• Email Subject Line A: Top-selling eBooks 25% off regular prices
• Email Subject Line B: Info-packed eBooks at Lowest Prices

Sometimes we run into some great blog posts with good tips about the frequency, design or purpose of email marketing – but just like many things online, we also run into some horrible, misguided information.

Recently we came across a blog post criticizing the efforts to make email, print and online communications consistent. The author claimed that consistent branding leads to readers ignoring the message because everything looks the same.

This is obviously someone who doesn’t understand how to develop a strong and effective brand.

“For example, a certain association holds a lot of webinars and classes, and they send out a lot of marketing messages about them — each of which follows the exact same template, with the exact same look, written in the exact same style. I get them and before I even read them, I know exactly what each email is about. And I delete every single one.”

He doesn’t realize it, but his example is a great sample of how consistent branding works. Yes, he may delete the emails now, but at some point he read them. Every single one of them, and we know this because he confesses to knowing the association’s brand. He knows the look, feel and tone of their emails. And, more importantly he knows they offer educational courses.

What he calls a failure in email marketing, is in fact, a great success.