Master your subject line

Face it; your emails are part of a snow storm blowing into someone's Crack berry.

Your carefully worded opus is part of a day's load of information that you expect to poke through, get read and hopefully elicit a response.

If you want to jump out of the e-noise and improve your readership with your email buddies you need to hone your skills at writing good subject lines.

The basics are:
* Vague is bad
* Hey! is not a real subject line
* RE: RE: FW: FW: is not attractive and will not be read right away

When I know someone well, I will make a call to action in the subject line if my email is intended to get someone to do something. If I need to change a call, I put it in the subject line. If I need you to send me a file, I put it in the subject. You'd be amazed how your response rates jumps.

When I am in a less intimate business relationship, I work on a three to five word subject that zeros in on why I'm sending the email. If we are working on an event together I'll put "About the sales conference" in the subject.

When you reply, feel free to start a new subject (too often we just reply and the subject line stays the same, except now with a RE: before it.) Let the new subject line redefine where the email thread is going. This not only helps to focus the email exchange on a real outcome, it keeps the conversation going.

This is especially true if many of your email buddies are on black berry. They scroll through subjects and make their choices almost on impulse. Most of the devices (like the TREO) will just show you subjects, not authors and you have to open it to know more.

In those cases, you can be the most effective just putting your name in the subject line. When I'm reconnecting with someone, for example, I always put "From Tim Sanders" in the subject line. Again, I've noticed a much quicker response.

All the comments on the blog are helpful and I'd like to invite readers to contribute their best advice for writing a subject line that gets results! This is an advice blog, so let's start cross sharing advice -- espcially if it can improve our email lives.

Comments

[Lena West]

Boss post, Tim!

I have taken the time to master subject lines - even if it makes them a bit long.

I ALWAYS use From Lena West: for more formal situations and From Lena: when I know the person well.

If you are being referred by someone, it's a good idea to put the referral's name in the subject line.

I recently attended an event and I followed-up within 24 hours by email. I put the name of the organization that hosted the event in the subject line and out of the 10 people I reached out to, only 3 didn't respond - that's a 70% response rate! Even with a warm list, this was good stuff.

If I know the person well, I'll put my whole idea in the subject line with -LW at the end. This way they don't have to waste time openining the email.

I always remove Fwd: in the subject line. I despise forwards and even if I am forwarding, I want them to know that I took the time to vet the source for them and this is information that I've personally scanned and feel can help them.

BTW, these best practices don't just work for email - they work on listservs, discussion groups and online community posting, too!

These are just a few tricks of the trade from someone who has been sending email since...well...forever.

-Lena
CEO, http://www.xynoMedia.com

[Bill Hybert]

I always delete emails where the subject is "hello" or "hey there". Yet, I find that at least once a month I accidently delete a real email, where the author made the mistake of just saying "hello" or nothing in the subject line.

here's the subject line mastery!

[Epic Living]

Great insight Tim! A great thing to keep in-mind when crafting is to put yourself in the receiver's shoes. For example, your name and preparing them for what's coming in the e-mail. With everyone going at warp speed, why not let the receiver know you seek their best. Like great listening, you repeat back what the other person has said.