Preston Fay, Chief Marketing Officer, Founder

What is the one line of your email that virtually everyone on the distribution list will read?

Here’s a clue:  It’s not the personalized greeting.  Not the elegant logo and tagline.  Not the compelling offer.   Not even the urgent “P.S.”

It’s the subject line.

Yes, a subject line is short (hopefully) and disposable (sadly), but it’s also an essential tipping point, determining whether the reader even opens your message.  That’s a lot of responsibility in a few dozen characters.

According to Badin, maker of the email plugin Boomerang, the average email user receives 146 messages a day, of which 71 (nearly half!) are deleted.   All the more reason, then, that your subject line should be the hardest-working part of your communication.

I see subject lines like the blurbs on magazine covers in the grocery store checkout line.  Those blurbs aren’t written to summarize the article or tout the publisher’s mission statement or uphold the magazine’s brand.  They’re written to be irresistible.  They’re written to snag a shopper’s attention, prompt him or her to pick up the magazine, flip to a specific article, and quickly decide to make the purchase – all before the last bottle of shampoo slides across the scanner.

That’s why, instead of blurbs like “Our experienced and dedicated editorial staff has worked diligently to leverage expansive and innovative educational content regarding satisfying your stakeholders,” we see blurbs like, “Seven ways to drive your partner wild.”

There are, of course, guidelines to consider when drafting email subject lines.  A subject line should be relevant, accurately reflecting the message of the email itself.  A subject line should be concise.  Study after study indicates that the shorter the subject line, the higher the open rate.  We also know that even when a longer subject line is “clicked open,” the reader likely does not read the subject line in its entirety.  The writer should also bear in mind that longer subject lines may be truncated.  Depending upon the mail server, a subject line may be automatically “shortened” to fit.  (AOL’s character limit, for example, is 60.  Yahoo’s is 47.)

These constraints; however, should only make us work harder, giving subject lines the respect they deserve – and empowering them to do their singular, short-lived job – get your email opened.