It’s a well-publicized best practice in email marketing to test and use different subject lines on your email campaigns. Load up a few subject lines, test with multivariate testing software (like WhatCounts email marketing software), and then choose the subject line that performs best. Where most email marketers stumble is at the very start – how do you know what subject lines to test?

One of the biggest mistakes we make as marketers is to get caught up in our own jargon. The more complex or technical an industry is, the more likely we are to use words, abbreviations, and subject lines that only industry insiders use. Why is this a mistake? Speaking or writing in the words of our audience (rather than our jargon) is one of the keys to getting email to perform better. The more you use language that resonates with your audience, the more they are likely to open, read, and act on your messages.

To counteract the jargon habit, try Google to see what actual terms people are using, then use those words in your email subject lines.

Here’s an example using a basic engineering term, MTBF, or mean time between failures. This is an abbreviation that is rarely used or even heard by non-engineers. If your email marketing list contained only engineers, using MTBF in a subject line would make perfect sense, but few email marketing lists (especially B2C lists) contain such narrowly-focused audiences. So what would be the start of a better subject line? Google’s related searches option shows us the way:

The more commonly used term related to MTBF is reliability. How much more commonly used? 15.2x more, according to a quick check in Google Trends:

Google Search isn’t the only option for researching what resonates with your audience. Twitter search lets you see actual conversations happening using your chosen terms. For example, in a search for the financial aid term FAFSA, we can find a number of actual conversations about it:

Look for commonalities in words and phrases, and consider using exactly the words your audience or potential audience is using. In the example above, a subject line derived from it might simply be, “Still have to do your FAFSA?” or “Still have to fill out your FAFSA?”.

Finally, stop treating subject lines as an afterthought to your messaging. Think of them as newspaper headlines or magazine cover headlines. The subject line is less the outside of an envelope and more the featured words that will get you to pick up and read the magazine at the supermarket checkout or newsstand.

As an interesting exercise, the next time you’re at the checkout line, quickly browse the available magazines and look at the headlines on the cover. Take careful note of the grammar and syntax used by publications to attract your attention. These headlines are language structures you can use for subject lines, such as “15 ways to X” or “5 things you didn’t know about X”. Make a careful note of which headlines were most compelling to you and then experiment using your content with those same language structures.

Take these ideas and use them in your next email marketing campaign and see how they work for you!

Christopher S. Penn
Director of Strategy, WhatCounts

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