Did you know that more than 105 billion emails get sent every day? Many people have hundreds of unopened emails sitting in their inbox, and that means the competition to catch their attention is higher than ever. Before the content of your email marketing campaign can even begin to work its magic, you’ve got to get them to open the message. And that means your subject line has to be perfect. If you’ve noticed that your efforts to connect to your ecommerce buyers through email just aren’t working, here are some tips to help amp up your subject lines.

Go Short and Get to the Point with Your Ecommerce Emails

One way to get customers opening your emails more is to keep your subject line short and to the point. Got a big sale going on? A good subject line is “Today Only! 35% Off”. That’s it. It’s short and sweet, and indicates to the reader that big sales could be waiting for them inside that email. Even a single word subject line can be powerful and eye catching if it is also descriptive enough about your content. For the example above, “SALE” could work, but “TODAY” is too vague.

Be Careful with Humor and Shock, But Don’t Avoid It

Many companies try to entertain or shock with subject lines. If they can get a chuckle out of the viewer, or shock them with controversy, it’s more likely that the email will be opened. The problem is that both humor and shock are subjective, and not everyone will get the joke or understand the controversy. If you do use humor and shock in your email marketing, be sure to go with something that will be well-known and inoffensive to your target audience (maybe skip the Deadpool references if your target audience is elderly, for example).

The Ultimate Goal of Email Marketing Subject Lines

The words you use, the message you write, or the personalization tactics you take, are nowhere near as important as the ultimate goal of crafting subject lines: visually standing out. This means that the shape of your subject line, compared to all the other subject lines in a person’s inbox, is unique. This is why using a one-word subject line stands out: it is visually shorter than all the other subject lines, so it jumps out. This is why many companies use all caps in their subject line, numbers, exclamation points or symbols – it’s all about capturing viewer attention.

Organically Helps You Stick to Your Brand’s Voice

Creating a great subject line for ecommerce emails is similar to all the other tasks of email marketing – you need to find your voice and stick to it. Is your brand funny? Shocking? Informative? At Organically, we can help you design your email marketing campaign and create great subject lines. Contact us to learn more!