Did you know 47% of email recipients open email based on the subject line whereas 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line. Emails with no subject all together have an open rate of 8% more than those with a subject line, whereas e-mails with personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened.
If you’re like a lot of email marketers, figuring out the perfect subject line can feel like a daily guessing game. After drafting an email, pairing it with the perfect pre-header, and choosing images, it’s no wonder people often settle for using drab subject lines just to hit the “send” button.
So, while subject lines may seem inconsequential, they embody your message’s first impression on a subscriber (and on the ISP, or Inbox Service Provider, that’s actively scanning for engagement cues to determine if you’re spamming or not).
If that’s not a good enough reason to nail your subject line, consider this — your click-through rate is entirely dependent on people opening your email — therefore, to increase sales and donations, you need more people to open your messages.
There are tons of email message types to consider. In this guide, we’ll share tips for crafting subject lines for broadcast messages (e.g., newsletters, invitations, announcements), welcome messages, workflow messages, industry-specific messages, holiday-themed messages, opt-in messages and autoresponders.
WELCOME MESSAGES: Hello, it’s me. I was wondering…
Even the worst welcome email in terms of subject line performance is better (at 2.9%) than the worst workflow subject line, at a low 0.2% open rate. This is likely due to the immediacy of welcome messages. Most email marketing service providers (ESPs) trigger these in response to a new sign-up in less than an hour. For example, a new subscriber offers up their contact information to score a discount on a future purchase, and BAM — they get your welcome message in their inbox. A workflow message or an autoresponder might take up to 1 – 2 days to trigger depending on how your automation logic is set.
Best practice is to time message triggers to coincide with actions; subscribers will get annoyed if your sign-up form states you’re going to email them something of value (e.g., coupon, recipe, whitepaper, video) and nothing pops up in their inbox a few minutes after they submit. Consumers are already skeptical about offering brands their primary email address; it’s best not to appear to be breaking your very first promise to them with a delayed or irrelevant message. 
Next time we will discuss SPECIFICS VS. TEASERS and WORKFLOW MESSAGES
The MaCorr Team
www.MaCorr.com