Monday, April 22, 2013

The Importance of Having a Good Subject Line in Your Email

"Don't Miss This!"

"Your $12 into $4000 in 7 Days Online!"

Don't they look familiar? Like me, you probably receive countless spam emails in your Inbox on a daily basis. Yet, we can learn from these spammers in crafting our emails. Without fail, most of the spam that I receive has arresting subject lines like those above. Yet, I have received emails from friends and non-spammers that either don't have a subject line or a subject line that doesn't spell out the purpose of their  intended message.

Let's say you are writing an email to a client to correct an error in the invoice sent out by your company and you have this as your subject line: "Invoice". This subject line does not give an indication of the purpose in sending out your email. The subject line could be rephrased thus: "Error in Invoice No. 45601". This would tell the reader what the email is really about.

A good subject line will also get the reader's attention. Quite often I have deleted emails that don't have a clear or arresting subject line. You may write a good email message, but there's still the danger of your email being deleted without the recipient having read your message if you have a lame or an ineffective subject line.