The ULTIMATE Subject Line Guide
501 Examples of the Best (and Worst) Ranked by Open Rate
Did you know that nearly 47 percent of all email recipients open email based on the subject line?
And 69 percent of recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line. With so much depending on your message’s first impression, creating your subject line is a real “make it or break it” situation.
A Data Gold Mine for Any Email Marketer
If you’re like most email marketers, writing the perfect subject line feels like a guessing game: “hmm, what will make them open?” But surely there is data in your own company’s email sending history that can shine light on the best- and worst-performing subject lines, right?
Unfortunately, determining inbox winners and losers can take a lot of time and resources. Even if you’re able to analyze your marketing performance over time, most businesses and nonprofits do not have a large enough sample size to identify the kinds of subject lines that will deliver consistently high open rates…
But we do.
15 Years and Billions of Emails Later…
That’s right, friends. iContact has over 15 years of sending history, sent on behalf of hundreds of thousands of our own customers. That’s literally billions of email messages. So, one could say we have statistical significance (for all you data nerds out there) that allows us to confidently make claims on the best- and worst-performing subject lines.
So we did.
Introducing: The Ultimate Subject Line Guide
iContact’s Ultimate Subject Line Guide is a true marketing mega-beast that features over 501 real subject line examples sent from our very own customers. This free guide is thorough, complete with expert advice from iContact’s brightest in-house marketers.
With your email sender reputation and open rates at stake, we decided enough was enough! It was time to put an end to this subject line writing guessing game; small business owners already have enough on their plates.
What You Can Find in Our Guide…
Over 501 real subject line examples (including number of message recipients and open rates)
Tips for crafting subject lines for the following message types:
- broadcast messages (e.g., newsletters, invitations, announcements)
- welcome messages
- workflow messages
- industry-specific messages
- holiday-themed messages
- opt-in messages
- autoresponders
Best and worst subject lines by industries, including:
- Agricultural/Environmental
- Nonprofits
- Software/Technology
- Financial Services
- Real Estate
- Food & Beverage
- Professional Services
- Education
- Travel/Hospitality
- E-Commerce
Experts discussing the following topics:
- Getting Through to a Decision-Maker
- Using Emojis in Subject Lines
- Why SpamCheck™ Matters
- Taking a Second Look at Preheaders
- When to Split-Test vs. Segment
We ❤️ Our Email Deliverability Analysts
Our email deliverability analysts poured over data tirelessly for months in order to demystify which words, characters, phrases, and punctuation drove better open rates and click-throughs, regardless of email list size. With over 501 real subject line examples, paired with industry expert commentary, it’ll be sure to change the way you think about subject lines forever.
I know you are dying to know which top 12 terms/phrases, when added to the beginning of your subject line content, consistently help messages receive open rates of 80 percent or higher. For example, “Important: Get this Subject Line Guide now!”
Who Will Benefit from the Subject Line Guide?
The Ultimate Subject Line Guide isn’t just for email marketers it’s for anyone who has, or ever will, send an email. Each page of the guide teaches you so much more than how to craft better-performing subject lines; it teaches you how to be relevant, timely, and a better customer-focused professional with all the content you produce.
Once you read through the tips in this guide, you’ll constantly have it shouting in the back of your mind, “You call that a newsletter subject line? A/B test that before sending it to a list size of over 50k subscribers, for ISPs’ sake!”
Once you have this knowledge, you literally can’t not use it. Trust me.
What Makes Our Guide Different
Email Service Providers (ESPs) have been known to produce how-to articles on crafting subject lines, so what makes this guide special? Well, seeing is believing when comparing your subject lines to examples of what others have sent in your same industry. But also, stepping outside of what you know by viewing the top- and worst- performers in different sectors can offer a fresh perspective and creative inspiration. For example, what can e-commerce B2C subject lines teach a nonprofit and vice versa?
Go ahead and download this FREE guide to use it for your next marketing campaign. While you’re at it, help a fellow marketer out by sharing this link. Or not — you can just keep it as your own secret weapon and leave them in the dark. Up to you!
Again — this 43-page Subject Line Guide, jam-packed with over 501 real subject line examples, is 100% FREE. #winning
Guess No More!
No more settling for drab subject lines. No more saying “meh, at least my email went out this week.” No more abysmal open rates! You deserve better than that. Your CUSTOMERS deserve a better experience than that. So, give it to them!
About the Author
Alana Craichy, Content Marketing Manager, iContact
Alana is a visual communicator, illustrator, designer, writer, creative thinker, dreamer, and portrait artist. But you can just call her a “Visual Problem Solver.”She’s fluent in Adobe Creative Cloud and has experience with a variety of CRM, and marketing automation platforms. With her knowledge in design, video, marketing, and SEO, Alana is in charge of creating and delivering marketing content for iContact by maintaining their WordPress blog, leveraging organic posts on social platforms, and making sure all organic assets (videos, webpages, etc.) align with (and benefit) iContact’s SEO and sales goals.
iContact is the leading provider of email marketing solutions. This article originally appeared on iContact’s blog. For more information, visit us at www.icontact.com.
