The subject line of your prospecting emails is your prospects’ first impression of your email and, by extension, you and your company. Of course, the body of the email is also important, but all the work you spend crafting the perfect message will be wasted if your prospects aren’t intrigued enough by the subject line to open the email.
That being said, tricking someone into opening your email is useless as well. There is no shortage of articles online that will tell you that if you just use certain words in your subject line, your open rates will skyrocket, but if your prospect opens the email and doesn’t find what they expected in the body, they aren’t going to take the action you’re requesting. Increased open rates that don’t translate to increased sales are not the goal either. We want the right people to receive our emails, open them, and take action to begin a conversation with us.
That may sound like a tall order, but it’s really a very easily achievable goal if you follow a common-sense strategy – just be straightforward. If your subject line is short, to the point, and descriptive of the content of your email, when it reaches the right interested person, they will open it, find what they expected, and very likely respond.
The take home message is this – writing email subject lines is important and not always easy, but it follows the same principles as any other aspect of sales. Be prepared, straightforward, helpful, and honest, and be wary of the blogosphere when it tells you anything is a magic bullet.
Knowing how to best navigate the world of email prospecting is our specialty. Drop us a line and let’s talk about how we can get your business up and running with an email prospecting program to keep your sales pipeline full.