Stand Out from the Crowd: The Most Powerful Words in Subject Lines

The inbox is a busy, busy, busy place. With other emails vying for your subscribers’ limited attention, it’s important that you make your subject line stand out – and get your email opened.

Inbox

So, what works best? We have shortlisted the 15 most popular words and find out what makes an effective subject line. The following represents their position, not their success rate.

As First Word

[su_list icon=”icon: male”]

  • Insert first name
  • Invitation
  • Introducing
  • We
  • A
  • Your/You/You!
  • Year
  • New
  • Month name
  • Special/Specials

[/su_list]

How Can You Improve Your Subject Lines?

Subject line personalization

Insert the first name using the drop-down

  1. Personalization rules – subject lines that are personally addressed do the best, use your tool to insert!
  2. Personal pronouns work, too – the popularity of “We” and “You/Your” shows that subject lines that make some kind of appeal to the reader are more likely to get a response.
  3. Make it timely – subject lines that feature dates or urgency seem to perform better than those that don’t. Holding your subscribers to a date to act, or letting them know that you’re waiting on them (with say, “Invitation”) can be a very persuasive tactic.
  4. Be exciting! Subject lines that end with an exclamation mark tend to result in more opens than those that don’t.

Paul Mycroft

Having emigrated from south London, England, Paul has moved between cities in North America, building a loyal following since starting the business back in 2002. Many US and Canadian clients are with him today who were there from day one.