Let’s say you’ve research your industry, you’ve created a visually appealing template and you have an email list. You’re now ready to send your first email. But customers are quite discriminating when it comes to giving out their email address. Their inbox is probably full of newsletters, so if they’ve given you their email address, it means they’re expecting value from you. Respect that trust by making sure your email is worthwhile to your customers.
First step is writing a catchy headline. If your subject line doesn’t catch someone’s attention, it’s going straight into the trash or junk email folder. Capitalising some words, adding exclamation marks and writing ‘free’ won’t help you either – it’ll probably get filtered straight into your customer’s junk email folder.
Your email headline should communicate the following:
- Why you sent it (the purpose)
- How your customer will benefit from it
- What response/action should come from reading the email
Once you have this down, you’re ready to brainstorm. Think about the style, voice and tone you’ve already used in your digital marketing, and try to replicate that in your email. Make your email style match the rest of your marketing content so as not to confuse customers. For example, if your customer signed up for promotions, it’s okay to use a sales-y tone. But doing so might not be successful otherwise.
Some more email headline suggestions:
- Keep things short
- Ask an easy question
- “Don’t sell what’s inside, tell what’s inside”
- Keep every headline consistent
Simple headlines do best because they communicate exactly what’s inside the email. We also suggest keeping a consistent style for your subject lines. This reassures your customers that the email content value will be the same for each send.
Craft your subject lines carefully to obtain a higher click rate, and ensure that email marketing is valuable to your business. Keep experimenting with headlines while you build your email list. This will tell you what brings in the best click rates.
Contact us if you want help creating an effective email marketing campaign.
