Chances are you already have thousands of subscribers on your email list. But have you ever wondered why only a few of them open your emails? You are not alone. Getting the customer’s attention with email subject lines is an issue that most cannabis brands and other companies struggle with.

A survey done by Campaign Monitor in 2019 across several industries reveals that the average open rate for emails was 17.92 percent, and the average click-through rate was 2.69 percent. In other words, more than 80 percent of subscribers don’t open emails, and a whopping 97 percent don’t bother to follow any other links.

If this sounds like your predicament, worry no more. This post will walk you through the importance of an email subject line and why you should spend more than a few seconds creating it. You will also learn how you can create catchy subject lines that can skyrocket your email open rate. Let’s get started.            

Why an email subject line is important

Your email subject line is the first thing that your subscribers see when they receive your email. It is your first impression, and for this reason, it has the power to make or break your marketing campaign.

Research shows that 35 percent of people open emails based on subject lines. 69 percent of people were found to use subject lines in their decision to mark email as spam.

For this reason, you should ensure that you are creating great subject lines. A great subject line will entice your subscribers to open your email. When they open your email, they will be more likely to click on them. When they click through, you get a better chance to convert them.

So, how do you create such subject lines? Here are six tips to help you:

Use personalized subject lines

Personalized subject lines help you increase your connection to your audience. Your audience feels as though you are addressing them directly. They feel as though the email was specifically written for them rather than for an entire subscriber’s list.

According to a report from the institute of direct and digital marketing, these are the top benefits of using a personalized subject line:

  •         Increase in open rate (84%)
  •         Higher email click-through rate (73%)
  •         Increase in customer satisfaction (58%)
  •         Increase in sales (56%)
  •         Decrease in unsubscribe rate (40%)
  •         Increase in returning website traffic (38%)

This data clearly shows the first benefit of using personalized subject lines is an increase in open rates. So how can you make your subject lines more personalized?  You can start by using the subscriber’s first name in the subject line. You can also use other pieces of information, such as the subscriber’s location or address, to make the message more personalized to them.

Convey a sense of urgency

Did you know that 56% of people are scared of missing out on an event, news or an important status update if they take their eyes off their social networks? Yes, the fear of missing out (FOMO) is real. And it’s not confined to social networks alone.

You can leverage this fear to increase the open rates of your email by creating a sense of urgency in your email subject lines.

How do you do this?

You can offer a sale with an expiry date. Instead of using “Weekly marijuana coupon inside” as your subject line, you could use this instead- “30% off sale ends at 5 pm.”

The second subject line will get more clicks because it makes the reader feel like they are about to miss out on something huge. It gives them a reason to act fast.

You can also create urgency by making it look like there is a limited amount of something available. Your subscribers will want to sign up before they miss out.

If your subject line says that the sale will continue for the next three weeks, your audience will feel like they still have time, there won’t be a need to act fast. They might end up forgetting about it altogether. But if you create a sense of urgency, you will see an increase in the number of people who open your emails.

Use breaking news as your subject line

Has something happened recently in the cannabis industry? You can leverage such an event to increase your open rates. Marijuana and the Law is a great example of a legal marijuana news outlet that uses this technique in their email subject lines.

Legal Marijuana News

Even if your business is not in the media or news reporting industry, you can still link to news that are related to the marijuana business.

If there’s nothing new that you could link to, you can create your own news by sharing the latest happenings in your cannabis business and make them sound like news headlines in your subject lines. You can talk about such things such as:

  • An upcoming event
  • A new budtender
  • A new product you are releasing

Tell a story in your subject line

We all love a great story. This is why we spend countless hours watching a movie, our favorite television shows or reading a book.  The stories captivate us.

You can increase your email open rate, click-through rate and even your sales by mastering the art of storytelling.

Telling a story in your email will capture your reader’s attention. The secret here is to use your emails subject line as a teaser for the story. You can even include a call to action in the story or use your story’s general theme to prompt an action.

Use short subject lines

Most businesses optimize their email content, but they forget their subject lines. Your subject line needs to be short, irrespective of the type of content it contains. Don’t use unnecessary words or characters. According to studies, email subject lines with fewer than 20 characters have the highest open rates.

About 55 percent of emails are opened on mobile devices. This means that if your subject is too long, most people will not see some of the words.

A long subject line might look okay on a computer screen, but it doesn’t work for mobile devices. Keep your subjects short, and your email open rates will increase.

Stimulate curiosity with your subject line

Your subject lines should arouse curiosity. Don’t tell it all in the subject line. Instead, hint at something that they will get if they click on the email. For instance, if you are giving a reward or a discount, don’t state what the reward or discount is in the subject line. Just give the reader a subtle hint.

When you give everything away in the subject line, you kill the reader’s desire to open the email because they feel they already know what is coming.

If, on the other hand, you use a short subject line that hints on what the email is about, you will pique the subscriber’s curiosity, and they will immediately click on the email to find out what it’s about.

Final word

There is no point in writing great emails if you cannot get people to open them.  This is why you need to put as much time into crafting a subject line as you do when creating email content.

All the tips we have discussed above are useful, but no matter which one you use, remember to keep the subject short so that it fits on the screen of a mobile device.

What tactics do you use to get your subscribers to open your emails? Leave a comment below.

Unlock you Business Growth with Email Marketing

Schedule a call to find our how email marketing can help your business to grow