Best Email Subject Lines for Sales

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Have your email open rates been plummeting? Are you looking for new ways to engage potential and current customers through email marketing? Look no further.

Email alone gives you the benefit of a few short words to catch attention and motivate receivers to open that message. It's easy to write a few words, but it's challenging to choose the right ones that will be intriguing enough for that follow-through.

Email marketers are always looking for new tactics when writing the best email subject lines. Customers are always getting wise to these marketing and sales tactics, so it's up to us to always be one step ahead. In this article, you'll find an extensive list of subjects lines for your upcoming sales emails.

Email Subject Line Best Practices

Before diving into all the different templates you can use to create compelling sales emails, it's essential to outline the best practices for writing email subject lines. Referring to templates and examples is a great jumping point. Still, the best marketer will understand that creativity and uniqueness will set their emails apart.

Did you know that over one-third of marketers use email marketing between 3 and 5 times per week according to Hubspot? Further, Campaign Monitor reports that 64% of all small businesses market to customers using email marketing.

These statistics prove that you aren't unique when it comes to sending emails. People are bombarded by marketers in their email inboxes every day, making most people quick to highlight all the new emails and press delete. To avoid this fate, you will need to make your email subject line so enticing and personal that they'll think twice before hitting that delete button.

Short and Sweet

It's no secret: email subject lines have to be short. You should do your best to keep the subject line around seven words or 41 characters. Anything more than that can cause your message to be cut off by the email host, and anything too short won't have enough substance to be effective.

Subject lines are meant to refer to the topic of the email, anyway. It would help if you weren't writing what should be covered in the email body in the subject line. Instead, you'll want to think of a clever way to make the subject line relevant to the email without showing all your cards.

Personalize It

Typically, people log onto their emails to see urgent messages from work or important emails from friends and family. Most of the time, email subject lines that are impersonal and clearly "sales-y" will automatically be skipped over and deleted.

One way email marketers have been getting more clicks is by personalizing the email subject line. People are more likely to open emails when they are directly addressed instead of a large swath of people, especially if these emails seem to be coming from a human rather than a robot.

Some great ways to keep an email looking personal and human are:

  • Set up email marketing to include the name of the person in the subject line
  • Craft a phrase that speaks to their experience, authority, and interests
  • Include merge tags in your email marketing that mention that person's location

Try out some of these ideas to catch their attention, and you'll start seeing improved open rates in no time.

As with all digital marketing areas, email marketing has trends. Marketers are always looking for new ways to entice people to open emails, so everyone jumps on board when someone finds an effective tactic.

Staying up-to-date on the latest trends, such as email drip campaigns, can help you stay sharp and benefit from the current successes. However, the best is to avoid making your emails look like every other email being sent at the moment. If you're not one of the first few people to jump on a trend, you should consider going your route.

Why?

Once everyone hops onto a trend, customers become wise to these new tactics. Hence, a subject line template with great open-rate numbers a month ago might suddenly be dead now that customers have realized the marketing scheme. You'll have to move on or create a unique way of using the trend so that it isn't deleted with all the other emails.

Helpmonks email subjects for marketing

Try Emojis

When you're scrolling through social media, ask yourself what catches your attention. For example, when you're on Facebook or Twitter, what makes people stop scrolling through all the posts on their feed?

Time and time again, researchers have proven that adding visuals to posts makes those posts so much more successful. People have short attention spans when staring at devices. Their attention spans are even lower for text-only messages.

Adding pictures, videos, and emojis to posts increases their success. While you can't add images and videos to your email subject lines, you can still take advantage of emojis.

Emojis are so diverse that they're essentially another language. Using this language, you can communicate topic matter, emotion, and urgency. These tactics are great ways to get your emails opened, mainly because the emojis set your emails apart from text-only subject lines in an inbox.

In addition, many email hosts have flags they use to alert email users to urgent emails. For example, users of Gmail get yellow arrows or tags next to their email subject lines when Gmail believes the user highly values that sender or topic matter.

Some email marketers have realized that using emojis which closely resemble these tags can increase the open rate. Most likely, this tactic works because it tricks email users into believing that the email is important.

Helpmonks email subject emoji
Helpmonks email subject lines with emoji

We see a "heart," one of the most used emojis for email subjects, in the first example. However, there is little relation between Bluetooth earphones and a heart. It's apparent that the sender just wanted the recipient to see the email. However, as there is little value and no relation, it doesn't work.

In the second example, we see an overuse of emojis, which comes over as spam email. Furthermore, there is no space between the emoji and the text, making it unreadable.

In simple words, don't overdo your use of emojis and keep it related.

Don't Overdo Punctuation

It's a tale as old as time that some people feel they've used too much punctuation in their emails, such as exclamation points. It's true, you should limit exclamation point usage in your emails, and this goes for subject lines as well.

Overuse of punctuation such as periods and exclamation marks will look spammy to email users. The punctuation will also take up precious character space that you could be used to write something persuasive and eye-catching.

Testing and Revising

Finally, you should constantly test and revise your email subject lines just like you do with all other marketing strategies. A/B testing is the best way to determine which email subject lines work best before sending them out to your entire market. It will also make sure you're getting the best open rates all the time rather than constantly guessing and seeing what sticks.

However, A/B testing only works if you're sending emails with similar subject lines. Only change one or two specific aspects of the subject lines to pinpoint the reason behind the results. Once you've got many results, you can compare the subject lines to see which ones did best with open rates.

Continually using A/B testing will help you refine your marketing strategy so that you're continuously improving.

There are tons of trends and templates being used for email subject lines in sales, but that doesn't mean you should try them all. Trends tend to be incredibly specific, and many won't translate well for your brand or goals.

You want your email subject line to be relevant enough to the email body. Remember, you want to direct your customers to your marketing funnel and not annoy them.

For starters, make sure your brand voice is represented. You shouldn't be using weird and funny subject lines for a formal brand. You also shouldn't be ignoring the opportunity to build rapport through humor if your brand is typically casual and fun.

Second, think about what your business offers before you draft subject lines. If your brand provides services to clients, your subject lines should be more personal and conversational. If your brand is more about selling products, then you should be more product and sales-centered.

Finally, your target customer should be enjoying your emails because they're getting value. This value will depend on the reason why they've signed up for your emails. Your subject lines should reflect this value.

Helpmonks Email Drip Campaign

Subject Line Email Marketing for Value

Now that you understand the basics of writing a compelling email subject line, you can start looking at email headlines to jumpstart your creativity. Remember only to consider the examples that make sense for your brand and sales goals.

Your business provides a product or service made to help people where their life "hurts." In other words, you've built your business plan around a target customer with a specific pain point, and you need to keep this in mind for your email marketing.

Ask yourself how your business helps its customers and clients. Do you offer resources and valuable content outside of your products and services?

Sending emails to customers about these resources is a great way to build client loyalty and trust. You'll need to do it in a way, however, that flags value for your customers.

Tips For...

If your business runs a blog or has someone who can sit down and write brief emails that provide valuable content, you can try this type of email subject line. The operative phrase would be something like "tips," "advice," or "how to..."

The other part of the subject line should refer to the pain point you help solve. For example, if you're a dog training company, you can craft email subject lines such as:

  • Tips for Reactive Dogs
  • How To Calm Your Dog
  • Advice for New Dog Parents

By bringing valuable content to your customer's inbox rather than waiting for them to seek it out on your website, you're meeting your customer halfway. In turn, they'll be more likely to click on product links you've included that relate to the content.

We Can Help You...

This email subject line speaks directly to your target customer's pain points. By using it, you're telling your customer exactly what you can help with, essentially pitching your business to them.

If you know your target customer well, you'll be able to intrigue them by offering help with their exact issues. Thus, increasing the chances that they'll open the email.

For example, if you're a seller of self-defense products, you could use:

  • We Can Help You Get Home Safely
  • We Can Help Nightshift Workers
  • We Can Help Increase Your Confidence

If your messaging targets the correct pain points, your customers will want to click on the email to find out how they can get help.

We Offer...

Similar to the previous tactic, this email subject line targets a pain point and offers help. In many cases, introducing the product right away can help customers associate your product with the solution to their problems and pique their interest. However, in this email subject line, you're telling them exactly how before they click on the email.

For example, you could be offering software for business owners that struggle with organization and workflow. You could say:

  • We Offer [Software Name] for Hectic Small Businesses
  • We Provide [Software Name] for Growing Startups
  • We Offer [Software Name] for Busy Entrepreneurs

In these cases, you are pointing out a problem, your target customer, or both. Doing this will help your target customer realize there is a solution for someone exactly like them.

Helpmonks Cold email subject lines

Best Cold Email Subject Lines

In some cases, email marketers are sending out emails to people considered cold leads. They haven't signed up for your services or help. You have a good feeling, though, that they'd be interested if they knew about your business.

Cold emails are unsolicited and often disliked. Most people don't appreciate getting contacted by businesses they don't know. It's your job to get over this hurdle by creating lead magnets and making your email subject line irresistible.

In most cases, you'll be sending out large quantities of these emails. Still, you'll want the impression to be that you've personally sat down and written each one individually. To do this, you'll wish the email subject line to be highly personalized and sound human rather than automatic.

Do you have a few minutes, [Name]?

In this scenario, you're directly asking the target customer to take a few extra minutes to consider your email rather than scrolling. The more specific you be with this email subject, the better. Using their name will make the email highly personalized, and you can add a number to the minutes to make it more enticing.

  • Can you spare 3 minutes, John?
  • Brenda, do you have 5 minutes?
  • Harry, want to learn SEO in 2 minutes?

Remember to be creative with your phrasing, but always make sure it sounds like a genuine human asking for their time rather than a sales pitch.

Apologies, [Name]

It's hard not to wonder what you're apologizing for in your email subject line. A potential customer will find it hard to resist opening your email to see what you've done that requires an apology. In actuality, you'll be apologizing for sending them a cold email.

By using this method, you're turning a negative into a positive. You could say:

  • Sorry about this, Pete
  • Dave, accept my apologies
  • Sorry in advance, Jerry

Once you've gotten their attention, you can explain yourself in the email body.

Hi [Name], Quick question...

This email subject line takes the form of what would commonly be a work email. A boss or employee could see themselves sending this type of email to a coworker, so it's more likely to grab the attention of a work-centered person.

However, once they open the email, the body could get into a sales pitch regarding their pain points. For example, you could introduce a product or service you offer for those paint points.

Best Subject Lines for Emails for Warm Leads

When it comes to turning warm leads into loyal customers, urgent emails are critical. Maybe they signed up for your email list or made an account on your website without going through with the purchase. It's your job to nudge them across the finish line.

If you're having difficulty getting conversions, here are some examples of the best sale subject lines.

Don't miss out...

Everyone experiences the fear of missing out at some level. Grabbing your potential customer's attention with the threat that they might miss out on something unique is sure to get them to click. Try phrasing like:

  • Don't miss out on our Labor Day discount!
  • Don't miss out on the chance to lose weight fast!
  • Don't miss out on our best seller!

To many, these phrases are irresistible.

Last chance...

Similarly, you can use the phrase "last chance." It signals to your potential customers that if they hesitate any longer, they could miss out on the product or service that drew them to your business in the first place. For example, try:

  • Last chance to join our VIP membership!
  • Last chance to try out our sample for free!
  • Last call for parents to enjoy this trip!

These subject lines are sure to get your target customer to jump up and make a decision.

Deal expires in...

Finally, suppose you regularly offer discounts and deals on your products and services. In that case, you could try referring to these deals in your subject lines. In addition, adding the number of minutes, hours, or days until the deal ends will instill a sense of urgency. You could try:

  • Deal ends in 24 hours!
  • Coupon expires today!
  • Discount Ends at Midnight!

If the customer knew about this deal before and forgot, this is a great way to recapture their attention. If they didn't know about it before, they'd be thankful you reached out to tell them before it vanished.

Helpmonks best subject lines for marketing emails

Best Subject Lines for Emails to Indecisive Shoppers

If your online store has many people filling up their carts only to abandon them, you may need to address a few issues. It could be that your potential customers are having trouble with the e-commerce functionality or are surprised by the final cost. Once you've addressed these issues, it's essential to reach out to these indecisive shoppers with a good subject for a follow-up email.

Of course, you can use these templates also to get customers to renew subscriptions, as people often forget when their subscriptions expire.

Whoops! You Left These...

Recapture your potential customers' attention by assuming they've left the products in the shopping cart by mistake. A quick phrase like "whoops" or "oops" is a great eye-catcher, followed by the reason for the issue. You could try:

  • Whoops! You forgot your [product]
  • Come back to claim your [product]
  • Oops, you forgot to check out!

A customer who was on the fence before might change their mind once they're reminded of the product they were interested in.

Still Interested In...

By reinspiring your customer's interest in a product or service, you're giving a warm lead a second chance. If the customer was interested enough to go through the shopping process, they might need a slight nudge to buy. Some good email subject lines are:

  • Are you still interested in [product]?
  • Still interested in purchasing [product]?
  • Would you like to buy [product] now?
  • We saw you liked [product]...

With the correct phrasing, your previously interested customer will revisit the site and go through with their purchase.

Your Cart Is Safe...

One cool thing about some platforms is that you can save carts for customers. Even if they leave and exit out of your site, you can keep their shopping cart active for a certain amount of time. If you do this, you can invite them to come back without going through the shopping process all over again.

Try:

  • Your cart is waiting for you, [Name]
  • Don't worry, we saved your cart!
  • You left [product] in your basked!

A potential customer will feel special and appreciate that you've made the shopping process easier for them. They'll also be more likely to go back and purchase what they were previously excited about.

Write The Best Email Subject Lines

No matter how experienced, every marketer is a work in progress. You'll always be learning and testing out new methods, and that's wonderful. Using the above tips and the best email subject lines templates will help you stay on top of the marketing trends and improve your open rates.

If you'd like more advice on improving your email marketing strategy, Helpmonks has all the tools for email marketing combined. We offer email marketing tools for creating and sending engaging newsletters for your current and potential customers in one unique team collaboration platform.

Visit our website and try our platform for email marketing today!

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