How to Write the Perfect Ecommerce Email Subject Line

6. Additional considerations to craft the perfect email subject line

Once you have developed a high-level strategy for overhauling your email subject lines, there are a few other factors that are worthy of investigation, some that many marketers easily overlook during their planning. Always keep in mind that what may seem insignificant to you could be the difference between a conversion and the recipient clicking the “mark as spam” button.

1. Who is the email coming from?

How have we gotten this far without talking about what is likely the first thing that your recipient notices in their inbox? The “from” field is used to describe the way the sender’s name is formatted in the recipient’s inbox, and it can significantly impact the first impression that they get from your message. If the email is coming from a specific person at the company, it is worth determining if the customer is going to know which brand the person represents, and if so, what their previously-established relationship is with this representative. Also, check to make sure your brand name is not abbreviated in a way that would cause confusion, as was the case with this email from Banana Republic.

Image from Litmus

2. Intriguing preheader text

There is another component that most email users see before they even take any action related to the message: the preheader text. You can think of the preheader text as the meta description of the email world. It is a line of text that follows — and complements — the subject line, which also appears on the inbox screen before the user opens the body of the email. Not every email client allows for preheader text, though the vast majority do support it.

Ideally, the preheader should work in harmony with your subject line in order to compel the reader to continue on their journey. You should always make sure that your subject line and preheader are compatible, and that they are never working against each other. Many brands use it as a space to include the call-to-action, and it can be used to further expand on the promise delivered by the subject line itself. Since the purpose of the preheader text is also to encourage the recipient to click, many companies prefer to minimize its presence in the content of the email itself, sometimes making it the same color as the background so that it is not visible in the body.

3. Audience segmentation

As usual, it is helpful to think of general marketing best practices and apply those to your email campaigns. Audience segmentation is one of the most crucial components in all of marketing, and this is true for email marketing as well. Whenever you share content with someone, ask yourself: “Does this provide value for the recipient?” or, better yet, “Would you open this email?” If the answer is no, then your email has no business being delivered. It is vital to keep your recipient lists well-researched and properly segmented, so that you never run the risk of sending an email with a subject line that has no relevance to your recipient because you failed to do your due diligence. Maintaining a relationship with a customer is always about providing value every step of the way.

Do you want to learn more about audience segmentation? Check out the ULTIMATE GUIDE!
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4. List culling & pruning

Savvy marketers know that disqualifying prospects is often just as important as qualifying them. Periodically pruning your email marketing lists is an absolute necessity, whether you are talking about bounce-back email addresses or previous customers who no longer engage with your brand. It seems counterintuitive to many business owners to take a prospect off of their email list; after all, it is a hard fought process just to get them to opt-in in the first place. However, strategic pruning can benefit your deliverability with your remaining audience and drive further engagement with interested parties. Most experts recommend going through your customer lists every three to six months and removing or relocating any email addresses who have not opened any correspondence during that time. You may also set rules in your email marketing software to automatically segment your lists. It is worth emphasizing that lack of engagement can affect your inbox deliverability for other subscribers on the same email domain, so pruning is of utmost importance.

5. Subscriber reactivation

Of course, if there is a way to reconnect with these disengaged customers and pique their interest again before they are pruned, it is worth taking a chance. To attempt to reactivate a recipient who has not engaged with any of your emails recently, it sometimes pays to give them extra attention in an effort to bring them back into the fold. At CM Commerce, Becs Rivett-Kemm recommends three things:

1. Lower the frequency at which you email unengaged subscribers.
2. Offer a special discount or bonus if they take a specific action to engage with your brand again.
3. Share a final offer that lets them know they will not be receiving any more correspondence unless they click. You might just win them back with a subject line such as: “Last chance. Want to keep hearing from us?”

6. Post-click actions

Finally, you need to take a hard look at the big picture effect that your chosen subject lines are having on your marketing performance. If they boost your open rates but you notice an increase in unsubscribes, you may need to reevaluate your current approach. On the other hand, are you experiencing a higher level of unsubscribes in conjunction with an increase in sales conversions? If so, you may be willing to bear the unsubscribes knowing that your subject lines are driving revenue via customer acquisition and retention. The actions taken by the recipient after clicking open always need to be factored in. As it usually goes in the world of analysis: one data point never tells the entire story.