By Tom Wozniak, Head of Marketing – published on Forbes.com on 2/4/21

Many email marketers consider the subject line to be the single most important factor in an email campaign’s success. I’m not sure I would go quite that far, but it is a key factor in whether your email is even opened — and generally, if a recipient doesn’t open your email, they can’t exactly engage with the content. Much like trying to catch someone’s attention in a conversation, the subject line may be your one chance to spark interest and begin a conversation. Your email content still needs to deliver on the promise of that initial introductory subject line, but the most brilliant email content won’t get a chance to amaze your audience if they never read it.

So, it makes sense for email marketers to put more than a little thought into crafting an effective subject line. Below are five useful tips to help you get a handle on your overall subject-line writing process and then write better and better subject lines over time.

1. Follow The Rules

First and foremost, familiarize yourself with key marketing (specifically, email marketing regulations), like the CAN-SPAM Act. Specifically, CAN-SPAM prohibits deceptive subject lines. Compliant subject lines must not mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the email message. This would be a best practice even if it wasn’t required by law.

Remember that while email open rates are certainly important, your ultimate goal is to drive further engagement with your email content and eventually conversions on various offers or promotions in your emails or on your landing pages. You want the people who open your emails to actually have an interest in the content. If the subject line doesn’t connect to the content they find, they are far less likely to engage further. The rules around email subject lines are in the best interest of you and your email recipients. 

Read the rest at Forbes.com.

Tom Wozniak heads up Marketing and Communications for OPTIZMO Technologies.