Litmus: Email Subject Line Myths

Our friends over at Litmus just dropped a great blog post on subject lines. They tackled six myths a lot of us believe about subject lines and debunked them with some very compelling data. They myths they address are:

• “Subject lines have the biggest impact on whether a subscriber opens an email”
• “Subject lines can only impact email open rates”
• “The subject line’s one and only goal is to get subscribers to open the email”
• “To compel subscribers to open, subject lines need to grab their attention with provocative and intriguing language”
• “The worst thing can happen to an email is that it isn’t opened”
• “If an email isn’t opened, then it’s like you never sent it”

We recommend you go give it a read, but we wanted to highlight a few of key findings that really made us think.

On Subject Lines And Click Rates

“YOUR SENDER NAME, NOT YOUR SUBJECT LINE, HAS THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON WHETHER YOUR EMAILS ARE OPENED.”

On Language In Subject Lines

“MANY OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE SUBJECT LINES ARE STRAIGHTFORWARD, WELL-BRANDED, AND KIND OF BORING.”

On The Goal Of A Subject Line

“THE GOAL OF A SUBJECT LINE ISN’T TO GENERATE OPENS. IT’S TO GENERATE OPENERS WHO ARE LIKELY TO CONVERT.”

Again, we can’t stress enough that you go check out the post and see all the data behind their findings.