Avoid generic e-zine, newsletter subject lines

Change them up for each issue

It’s been awhile since I’ve received the HubSpot blog e-zine — whattup with my subscription, HubSpot? — but the five editions I received most recently had these subject lines:

• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion

Generic subject lines — “Newsletter name” — are more likely to be deleted than opened. So says usability guru Jakob Nielsen. So says MailChimp.

Why avoid generic subject lines?

What’s wrong with this approach? Repeating subject lines:

1. Reduces opens. “It’s obvious that if you send the same campaign over and over again (such as reminders for an event), your open rates will decline with each subsequent campaign,” write the experts at MailChimp.

But how much should you expect it to decline? In one study, MailChimp tracked the results of these similar event reminders:

• 1st email: Funk n Sandi @ The Roxy on 3 March — 8% open rate
• 2nd: Funk ‘n’ Sandi @ The Roxy on 3 March — 6.3%
• 3rd: This Sat 3 Feb — Funk n Sandi @ The Roxy — 5.1%
• 4th: Don’t forget — Funk ‘n’ Sandi this Sat 3 Mar!— 3.5%

2. Makes your message hard to store. I save my e-zines for reading on planes. I’ll bet you save yours for a more convenient time, too.

The problem with generic subject lines is that they’re hard to store. When I save one with a generic subject line to my “reads” file, I have to rewrite the subject line:

• Instapaper
• Instapaper-2
• Instapaper-3
• Instapaper-4
• Instapaper-5

3. Makes your message hard to find. Oh, my God! An article in one of your e-zines has changed my life. I want to be able to refer to it often and share it with everyone I know.

But where is it? Will I find it in:

• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-2
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-3
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-4
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-5

How to write specific subject lines

So how can you make your subject lines less generic?

1. Tell the story.

For years, the folks at Daily Puppy sent out this subject line … every … day:

The DailyPuppy | Pictures of Puppies

I like pictures of puppies as much as the next gal, but I’m not sure I’d open that after, say, the 100th day. But Daily Puppy recently changed its subject lines to include the puppy’s name and breed. Who wouldn’t want to:

Meet Pistachio the English Bulldog!

Don’t write e-zine subject lines like this:

April news from Litmus

New Post is up on That’s Not My Age

What’s new in MailChimp: April 2018

Instead, treat your subject lines as headlines. Summarize your lead article in subject lines like these:

5 Types of E-Commerce Shoppers

— Nielsen Norman Group

Police officer’s good deed draws praise on Facebook

— SmartBrief on Social Business

The Interpreter: How America came to love small wars

— The New York Times

Voter registration + turnout = historic midterm election

— Indivisible

Starbucks will close 8,000 locations for racial bias training

— Eater

2. Don’t repeat the sender in the subject line.

They’ve already seen your From line. Avoid wasting any of your 25-40 characters repeating that information.

Alan Weiss | Unique development from Alan Weiss

… how about delivering some details about the development?

Alan Weiss | Multiply your income with new classes

Instead of …

SEO Tips List | [SEO-Tips] Tomorrow’s SEMRush Meetup

… how about delivering some details about the development?

SEO Tips List | Save $50 on tomorrow’s SEMRush Meetup

3. Drop the date.

Most email clients display this information near the subject line. (Not that recipients are scanning your subject line for calendar information.)

Plus: Don’t let dreary details like dates get in the way of the information that actually drives opens: the contents of your e-zine or newsletter.

Overcome sender unfamiliarity

While generic subject lines don’t get clicked, enticing ones drew them into the email — even when they weren’t familiar with the senders. (And overcoming sender unfamiliarity isn’t easy.)

“When users are looking through their inboxes and dealing with vast amounts of email, any indication that a message is worth opening is helpful,” Nielsen writes.

Like this one, from Roger Dooley:

Simple Hacks to Develop a Magnetic Memory, more

Want to get opened? Change the subject line.

___

Sources: Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade, and Jakob Nielsen; Marketing Email and Newsletter Design to Increase Conversion and Loyalty, 6th Edition; Nielsen Norman Group, 2017

“Best Practices for Email Subject Lines,” MailChimp, June 20, 2018