100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 2006 to 2014

The most effective subject lines are straightforward and predispose openers to engage with the content of an email. However, creativity has its place. Whether you’re newsjacking, promoting a non-sales message, tapping into the voice of your customers, or just conveying your brand’s attitude, creativity in less than half the length of a…

Quick Email Marketing Wins in 2015

Going into the New Year, instead of focusing on the new, why not focus on the easy. Below are my picks for email marketing initiatives that are low-effort and high-return: Optimize your snippet text Implement predictive intelligence for personalized recommendations Add defensive design elements to your email templates Test special characters in…

Infographic: Optimizing the Second Subject Line – Snippet Text

Your sender name has the biggest impact on whether subscribers open and engage with your emails or not. The vast majority of marketers do a great job of using the same sender name consistently to ensure they’re recognized in the inbox. Your subject line has the second largest impact. Because of its…

The Most Inspiring Subject Lines

There’s probably no greater fascination among email marketers than subject lines. Creating magic in just a few dozen characters is a mix of art and science and luck. While straightforward subject lines tend to fair best, I recently shared 100 of my favorite creative subject lines since 2006 to inspire folks to…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 5 Examples of Using Special Characters

Support for special characters is good enough that they’ve become common in subject lines over the past 24 months or so, opening up many new creative opportunities. Our 100 Inspiring Subject Lines includes some great examples of ones that use special characters: Subject Line #69 Avaaz.org, 12/10/12 — They want to ██████…

Video: My Personal Favorites from 100 Inspiring Subject Lines

100 Inspiring Subject Lines has some fantastic examples of various subject line strategies, from newsjacking to puns, and personalization to special characters. However, for me there were four that really stood out as the best of the best. I share them in this short video: So those are the ones at the…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 4 Subject Line Personalization Examples

While first-name personalization of subject lines can still be effective when used prudently, it has become clear that subject line personalization has moved beyond first names. At this point, knowing a subscriber’s name is just not very impressive, and not a convincing indicator that the content of the email is personalized and…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 5 Newsjacking Examples

The practice of leveraging the popularity of a news story, event or cultural phenomena to promote yourself or your company, newsjacking is one of many ways to boost the relevance of your emails. Our 100 Inspiring Subject Lines includes some great examples of newsjacking in action: Subject Line #21 Bluefly, 10/23/08 —…

100 Inspiring Email Marketing Subject Lines

The most effective subject lines are straightforward and predispose openers to engage with the content of an email. However, creativity has its place. Whether you’re newsjacking, promoting a non-sales message or just conveying your brand’s attitude, creativity in less than half the length of a tweet can give your emails the edge—especially…

iOS 7 Calendar Quirk Affecting Some Subject Lines

Making sure marketing emails look and perform well on mobile devices has never been more important. And that’s a goal that can be challenging when there are often small, unannounced changes in email clients. I recently spoke with Bill Siwicki of Internet Retailer about a quirk in Apple’s new iOS 7 that…