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E-mail Tip #4 - Make the Subject Line Work for You

Guest post by: Robert Whipple

Article Overview: The subject line of an e-mail is a lot more important than most people realize. This article picks apart the topic and shows many examples of both good and bad subject lines. Given the subject line is one of two things a person considers (author is the other) when deciding when and if to open a note, we need to be very careful with wording.

E-mail Tip #4 - Make the Subject Line Work for You

Think about your mental process as you scan over your inbox. You look for two pieces of data: the sender and the subject. Spammers know the value of a good subject line: people ignore notes with certain subjects, but respond well to others. For example, here are some subjects that do not work well for getting hits when marketing a product on the internet:

Subject lines that do not work well

"Just for you"

"Urgent request"

"You will thank me"

"CONGRATULATIONS you have WON!"

"Can we talk?"

"Incredible income offer"

"Enlarge your..."

"Free..."

There are numerous books and articles on the internet giving advice on how to sell effectively on the internet. I will not go into the subject, except to encourage that you word your subject lines so they are not screened out by spam filters.

Avoid subjects such as:

"Hello"

"Me again"

"This is just for you"

"An opportunity"

"Hi"

Some spam filters also kick out messages that have "free," "money," or other such terms in the subject line or the body of the text. Learn the rules of your company's filters to ensure your messages get through.

When sending an e-mail message, you want your subject to reflect the essence of your note in a short, crisp phrase of roughly five or six words. The reader will be scanning the subjects of many e-mails and will decide when (or whether) to open yours based on what you write. Here are some examples of subject lines that would draw in the reader.

"I need your input by tomorrow" (If the person knows you)

"You were excellent today"

"McWilliams loved our presentation"

"New product concept for our Fall Lineup"

"Idea to improve office cooperation"

"Supply problem is looming"

"Our keyboard design wins!"

Getting the reader to open your e-mail is only half the opportunity embodied in the subject line. The subject is your opportunity to set the tone or body language for your note even before your reader opens it. You have a huge advantage in terms of lobbying your cause if you have set the tone correctly in the subject line. This is so critical, it is worth exploring some examples to highlight the sensitivity of word selection. Imagine you see a note from your boss in your inbox with the subject:

"I'm frustrated - re McFarlin Account"

The body language is pretty hard to miss. You will open this note as carefully as you would an envelope known to have anthrax inside. The subject has left you predisposed to be defensive long before the boss starts her diatribe. A better subject for this note might have been:

"Seeking your additional help - re McFarlin"

You would be much more open-minded as you open this note. First, the boss is seeking or requesting your help, which is usually a good thing. Second, she is acknowledging your past contributions by using the word "additional" in the subject. This lets you know you are valued for past efforts. You will be much more likely to respond positively to your boss with the second subject line.

Suppose you are writing a note to a peer who is an internal competitor of yours for a promotion in the organization. Your note might be entitled:

"Must stop our groups from fighting"

The implication here is one of turf battles. You and your peer are both supervisors in silo groups within an organization. There is no trust between the groups, most likely because of the environment and culture created by you and your peer. The subject line of your note will be interpreted as a challenge. It almost sounds like all the fighting is the fault of the other person and you are blameless. Your peer will read your note and pick apart every opportunity to prove the problem is generated by you and your group. In other words, the subject line alone will amplify rather than mitigate the lack of trust. Notice the first word of the title is "Must" rather than "We." This signals a lack of desire to work toward a viable solution. It is nearly as bad as starting with the word "You."

A more helpful subject line for your note might be something like:

"Let's get our teams to work better together"

This subject is more constructive. It signals a positive image of the future. It also is highly collaborative rather than accusatory. Any culpability in previous actions is assumed to be bilateral. With this as the subject of your note, you are likely to get a more receptive response.

Another example is a situation where one group is taking over another group in a merger. This situation is common in times of organizational turmoil. Sensitivities run high on the part of the group that is being taken over. Incidentally, one hallmark of this situation is that the group reporting to the surviving leader always feels like the victor, and the group whose leader was sidelined always feels like the underdog. It takes a long time to rebuild trust after a merger.

Suppose you are the leader of the merged groups trying to build a new coalition. Your first note to the merged groups could have a subject line like:

"Ideas for how our new organization can operate effectively"

This will do nothing to assuage the fears of the threatened group. They will see the title and think, "OK, this is how he wants to run the combined organization. I had better update my resumé right now." There is a "command and control" flavor in the subject that does little to calm the fears of the "taken over" group. A more helpful subject for a first note might sound like this:

"Seeking ideas to tap mutual strengths"

This subject creates a different body language. First, the leader is not dictating ideas; rather he is looking for them. Second, he has recognized that both groups have strength areas that will be important to the merged organization. People will still be skeptical about the leader's intent due to low trust, but at least he has signaled some important considerations in the subject of his first note.

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Article Tags: email, Leadershi, subject, trust



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Creating unique forum post titles - Hi Evan, As one of the people who spends the most time in these forums, I don't really think it's a sustainable idea to ask users to create unique "Subject Titles" for every post. Even forum loyalists (including myself) are bound to forget on occasion, while the average user won't even care. Instead, would there be a way to leave the "Subject Titles" blank and only allow posts with manually created titles to be submitted? Most people would be too lazy to copy the original title and would therefore be forced to think of a new one (which would likely be unique).
Subject line Etiquette - Another email rant: Is there some place on the internet that outlines proper "Subject line" headings? There mus be a system out there that people use to be more efficient email senders. Not everything that comes into my mail box requires my immediate attention. I would love to educate myself and the people who send me emails on proper subject lines. Maybe something like: "Urgent Review: <<Title of document>>" "Decision Required: "<<Subject matter>>" just something for me to quickly scan the subject lines and decide which ones need my immediate attention. Anyone know of such email standards that exist out there?
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Re: Subject line Etiquette - [quote="jvprosperity":btyoa0j1]Another email rant: Is there some place on the internet that outlines proper "Subject line" headings? There mus be a system out there that people use to be more efficient email senders. Not everything that comes into my mail box requires my immediate attention. I would love to educate myself and the people who send me emails on proper subject lines. Maybe something like: "Urgent Review: <<Title of document>>" "Decision Required: "<<Subject matter>>" just something for me to quickly scan the subject lines and decide which ones need my immediate attention. Anyone know of such email standards that exist out there?[/quote:btyoa0j1] Hi Andy, The only system I know of at the moment is the "Set Priority" feature on MS Outlook. It allows you to add an exclamation mark to flag the message as being of high, normal or low priority. However, I'd say that a "sender" is still better off using the phone rather than sending an email that's labeled "urgent".


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