Last Modified: February 26, 2025
Cold emailing is part of any successful sales strategy, but crafting an effective email subject line can often be challenging. Your subject line is the first thing your audience will see in their inbox, and it can make or break the success of your email campaign. With so many emails flooding our inboxes daily, it's important to ensure your subject line stands out and entices your audience to open your email. In this blog, we’ll provide you with the top 97 subject lines, tips, and best practices for creating subject lines that improve your campaign performance.
The subject line of an email is the text line that the recipient sees in their message from you. The purpose of subject lines is to notify the receiver about the content of the email they are about to receive.
Your email subject line is the first impression you make on your audience, and it can determine whether your email gets opened or sent straight to the trash. In fact, research shows that 47% of people open emails based on the subject line alone. Your subject line needs to be attention-grabbing, relevant and personalized to your audience.
It should clearly indicate what the email is about and provide value to your readers. The subject line is an opportunity to create urgency and encourage your audience to take action. A well-crafted subject line can increase your open rates, improve your click-through rates, and ultimately drive conversions. Therefore, giving your email subject lines the time and attention they deserve is important.
If your subject line doesn’t stand out, your message will likely be overlooked or sent straight to the spam folder.
Understanding the psychology of email recipients can help you craft catchy subject lines for business emails. Here are a few techniques that work well:
Segmentation is crucial in email marketing as it allows you to tailor subject lines to specific groups of recipients. By segmenting your audience based on industry, job title, past interactions, or engagement levels, you can craft subject lines that resonate more effectively with different audiences.
Effective Ways to Segment Your Audience:
Segmentation helps ensure that your emails are more relevant, which improves open rates and overall engagement.
1. Keep It Short and Clear
2. Avoid Spam Triggers
3. Personalize Your Subject Lines
4. A/B Test Subject Lines
5. Address Your Prospect’s Pain Points
With over 60% of emails being opened on mobile devices, optimizing subject lines for mobile is critical. If a subject line is too long, it may be truncated, reducing its effectiveness.
By ensuring subject lines are mobile-friendly, you increase the likelihood of engagement and improve email performance.
A subject line should not only grab attention but also align with the email content and CTA. Mismatched subject lines can lead to high open rates but low engagement, as recipients may feel misled.
Aligning subject lines with the email content builds trust and ensures better engagement from recipients.
Even well-intentioned subject lines can fail if they include these common mistakes:
Even the best subject line won’t help if your email isn’t reaching inboxes. Email deliverability plays a crucial role in the success of your cold emails. Factors like sender reputation, spam filters, and domain authentication impact whether your emails get opened.
To maximize deliverability:
A/B testing subject lines is key to optimizing open rates. To run effective tests:
By regularly testing, you can refine your approach and create high-performing email marketing subject lines that resonate with your audience.
Here are five quick tips to get the most out of your email subject lines.
How long should an email subject line be? Typically, you want to keep subject lines to at least 40 characters. Short subject lines are quick and easy to read. In some cases, subject lines that contain two to three words can grab your recipient’s attention.
A subject line that sells too aggressively is often considered spam. You should avoid using multiple exclamations and overtly promotional language such as “Buy Now.” This will certainly send your email directly into the spam folder. Instead, focus only on promotion and offer a little knowledge that the audience might find helpful.
If you’re looking to write If you want to write a subject line that jumps out to the recipient, you should consider researching about them before you start writing your emails. LinkedIn is a great starting place to learn about who you are sending emails. Sometimes, you and the recipient could have common connections, similar hobbies, or even attend the same school. It can also help to check any work they’ve put on their profile to which they can refer back. This increases the likelihood that they'll open your email.
A/B testing subject lines is an important aspect of cold emails as it allows businesses to optimize their email campaigns for better engagement rates and higher conversions. You can determine which subject line resonates better with your audience by testing two different subject lines on a small subset of your email list.
A/B testing can also help identify which types of subject lines work best for different segments of your audience, which can be used to tailor future campaigns for even greater success.
To address a pain point in your subject line, you can use phrases such as "solve your [pain point]," "struggling with [pain point]?" or "get relief from [pain point]." For example, if you sell a software product that helps small businesses manage their finances, you could use a subject line such as "Seamless financial management.”
Addressing pain points is effective just make sure what you’re highlighting is something that you provide a solution for. If your product or service cannot solve the pain point that you are addressing, it will only lead to disappointment and mistrust from your potential customers.
Sometimes we scratch our heads and ask for ideas when we write subject lines. Below, we have provided 97 email subject lines we've used for real companies and helped book over 400 meetings monthly for our clients.
One psychological concept almost impossible to resist is the fear of missing out. You could use that fear as a subject line with a little scarcity (limited availability) or urgency (limited duration). Using time-sensitive words–such as urgency, “breaking,” “important,” or “alert”– has been found to improve email response rates. Here are 25 examples of FOMO subject lines.
Inspiring curiosity in your subject lines provides a sustainable and reliable method of engaging a target audience. It prompts your audience to ask questions and seek answers, making them more invested in your content. By sparking curiosity, you create a desire to learn more, increasing the chances of your message being shared with others. By consistently using subject lines that pique your audience's interest, you can build a loyal following of engaged readers who look forward to hearing from you. Here are 25 subject lines that can inspire curiosity.
Subject lines that focus on sharing valuable information can effectively engage and retain a target audience. By offering a glimpse of what readers can expect to learn from your content, you can establish yourself as a trustworthy source of information and incentivize them to open and engage with your messages.
When it comes to setting up in-person meetings with prospects, subject lines are just as important as the actual invitation. A good subject line can capture attention and increase the likelihood of getting a positive response. Here are 25 examples of subject lines that can help you secure that coveted meeting over coffee or lunch.
By using the examples and tips provided, you can create subject lines that are concise, clear, and compelling, which can increase the chances of your emails being opened, read, and acted upon. Don’t underestimate the power of a good subject line - it can make all the difference in your sales email campaign!
Crafting effective subject lines is essential for capturing the attention of your target audience and driving engagement with your content. However, it's important essential to remember that subject lines are just one part of a successful cold emailing strategy, and they should be complemented by high-quality content, personalized messaging, and a strong call to action. By incorporating these elements into your email campaigns, you can build strong relationships with your subscribers and achieve your sales goals.
Email marketing is all about getting people to open the email. A great email subject line will increase your email open rate and help ensure the email recipient gets a follow-up email. Before you send an email in your marketing email campaign, ensure that your email subject line is hooking the recipient to open it!
A strong email subject line is the first step to successful cold outreach. It determines whether your email gets opened, read, and acted upon. By using effective subject line strategies, you can increase your open rates and improve engagement.
However, crafting great subject lines is just one part of the equation. Your entire cold email strategy, including deliverability, personalization, and follow-ups, needs to be optimized for success.
If you want to streamline your email marketing, consider outsourcing your appointment setting needs to Key Outreach. Our sales development representatives (SDRs) will get you the leads you need (email, phone, etc.) to increase your business immediately. Contact us and start your journey with us today!
