Guest Author - Pamela Blackmon

Of all the e-newsletters and ezines you receive daily, weekly or monthly, which ones do you look forward to reading, regardless of the subject line? Now, think about the newsletters that you remember signing up for but don’t necessarily read unless the subject line seems compelling enough.

You probably have readers who fall into both categories meaning you've got to sell the others on consistently opening your newsletter. One way to start is to write compelling subject lines.

Start by remembering that most email subject lines yield 40-60 characters so it's crucial to make each letter count. Long subject lines get cut off, perhaps chopping off the crucial part of your message. Also, be sure to infuse some consistency into your characters—don’t use a lot of different symbols or odd combinations of capitalized and lowercase letters. Make it easy on your reader’s eyes.

Now, let's look at some techniques for writing compelling subject lines that get your email opened:

Make sure your name is recognizable.
Whether you’re using your name, your company moniker or the title of your publication in the “From” or the “Subject” line, just make sure it’s recognizable. If people don’t know who you are, they’re more likely to delete or simply not respond to your email.

Offer a benefit.
Think like your reader. What, to them, would be a great offer?

I received an email recently from Blockbuster touting free movie tickets for an upcoming release. I clicked on it, of course, since I love movies. And, whenever Borders sends member rewards coupons offering 25% to 30% off on any book in the store, I usually open those too.

Offers like those get opened by people interested in saving money, time, energy, etc.

Arouse curiosity.
Consider this subject line from an email marketer that arrived in my inbox this week:

You'll Never Make The REALLY Big Money Online Without This... Without what?

While some may think it sounds like SPAM, anyone seeking to earn extra cash through the Internet might click on this email to find out what the missing ingredient is. (For the record, I didn't!)

Run your newsletter through a spam check filter.
This helps you eliminate trigger words that send your email straight to junk mail instead of directly into your subscriber’s inbox. Be sure to use the exact copy that you plan to send to readers to make sure it’s accurately “de-spammed.”

Test different subject lines.
Depending on the size of your list, send different versions of your newsletter to more than one segment of readers. Monitor the subject lines with the highest open rates. Learn from the results and either incorporate or eliminate the successes and failures into future campaigns.