More than 300 billion e-mails are estimated to have been sent and received each day for business and personal use in 2020, and the figure expected to increase in the years ahead.[1]
Email is a constant in business. But, when is the last time that you paid attention to your subject line? A lot of people never take advantage of this valuable real estate. Stand out from your peers and get your emails read and acted on if you do.
1. Put your call to action in your subject line
Make it clear what you need someone to do right in your subject line! Chances are good that if you send an email, your subject line will be read even if no one opens the email itself. Adding your action front and center helps your note stand out in crowded inboxes and helps people organize their tasks.
Examples of call-to-action phrases to add to your subject lines include the below. After the action phrase, include a few words to describe the content of the email to give additional context to help people out.
- Please Approve: Budget Request
- Please Review: Website Article
- For Awareness: [Project Name] Update
- Preview: Email to Senior Leadership
- Heads Up: Timing for Social Media Posts
- Please Sign: [Topic] Documents
- Approval Required: [Project Name] Change Request
- Pre-Read for [Date]: [Meeting Name]
2. Keep It Under 6 Words
Brief is best. Keep your email subject lines short and sweet for maximum impact. Challenge yourself to keep it under six words if possible.
Not only does the person receiving the email appreciate reading less, but it also forces you to make your point clearly and succinctly. To do that, figure out what is most important in your message and stick to it.
Keeping your subject line to a few words can also make it easier for people to read on mobile devices. If you do need to include a longer subject line, try to put the most important content in the first few words.
3. Read Your Subject Line Again
Once you finish drafting your email, go back and quickly read your subject line one more time. Does is still make sense? Or, did your content change as you were writing your message? Even brief emails sometimes evolve as we write them so it’s always good to check your subject line one more time before you hit send.
Take Action
Try
one or more of these tips to write better subject lines in your business
emails. If you want more ideas for better business communications, check out
these other articles: Four
Common Writing Mistakes and How to Fix Them, How
to Write a Killer Elevator Speech, and 10
Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Writing.
[1] Statistica. “Number of sent and received e-mails per day worldwide from 2017 to 2025.” February 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/
