It’s rare if a week goes by that doesn’t include us crafting marketing email subject lines. Some of our customers write their own. Some instead rely on our staff to do so, because we take an awful lot into consideration when writing them. Why are they so important? Look at it this way. A lot of work goes into getting a marketing email ready. It’d be an absolute shame if our customers’ subscribers didn’t bother opening them.

The more marketing emails that subscribers open, the higher the chance of a click-through

Most of the time, all it takes to increase the open rate is a little TLC in the area of crafting the subject line. That said, here’s a roundup of some of the articles we’ve found inspiring on this over the last couple years. As a quick word of caution, you’ll obviously want to test these using A/B testing or analytics. To do this, we consider one of the two following methods:

1. Try a monthly analytics review to see which subject lines worked, and which didn’t.
2. Some email service providers provide the ability to A/B test subject lines. Better yet, some even allow automatic A/B testing with subject lines. Two subjects compete in the first 10% of your list. Afterwards the winner is determined and used as the subject of the remaining emails.

Litmus: How to Write the Perfect Subject Line [Infographic]

We consider Litmus to be the #1 name in the world of testing marketing emails. They also happen to put out articles we enjoy. This gem can serve as guide-rails into the world of subject line crafting.

Buffer: Headline Formulas

Ready to move past the fundamentals? This article shares 30+ well-established headline formulas that you can test for yourself. And while it happens to pertain to writing headlines in general, it can still be relevant here. If you happen to be armed with personality test persona info on your target audience, you’re in luck. The author went through the trouble of providing you with the psychology behind each of these as well.

Campaign Monitor: Headline Formulas

Eight more headline formulas that can easily be added to your arsenal. Just scanning these articles for examples that fit your subject line need? This list can be especially helpful.

Campaign Monitor: Using Emoji and Symbols in Your Email Subject Lines

For some, using emoji in email subject lines can generate lots of extra opens. This article from Campaign Monitor can help get you started. (Note: We strongly recommend exercising caution with this method. Be sure to test emoji on several devices, and also keep an eye on your unsubscribes with this method.)

Also see:

Wikipedia: Miscellaneous Unicode Symbols