Email Subject Lines

How do you handle them?

[pageoneresults]

I was having a conversation with a client this morning and we were discussing email subject lines. This came up because we were both looking for an email from a third party and the subject line was too generic to find it at quick glance.

One of the things I've gotten into over the years is making sure that my email subject lines are directly related to the email being sent. It's almost as if you need to perform the same optimization techniques on emails that you do with web pages. You know, a page title, a heading, etc.

When you are sending and replying to email, and the subject drifts from the original email, do you ever update the subject line to reflect the changes in the email content? Or, do you just start a new message? What about others that you communicate with?

[jatar_k]

most of the time, even when replying I enter a different subject line or I add to it if it is short or non descriptive.

If I am just asking a short question the whole question usually goes in the subject and no content is sent, makes it even easier to follow.

I get entirely too many important email with subjects like "look at this" and the like, I think these people either read too much spam or not enough.

[coopster]

In web page development and back end programming I make sure the subject is in regards to the topic at hand before sending it off to the SMTP server, just as you stated P1R.

When replying to folks via my email client I hesitate to change the subject line in fear of confusing them -- folks seem accustomed to seeing the old "RE: here is the original subject line" printed there. If it is indeed a new subject, I'll often leave only the last piece of their last correspondence when the content in the body changed and give the email a new subject line at that point. Like I said though, I often wonder if it doesn't cause more confusion?

[stuntdubl]

Bad titles are definitely a pet peeve of mine, and I think subject lines fall under that same category. I sometimes use re: their subject ... if it is a good subject line. If not, try to use one that will stick out and not look generic. It's not like you are really LIMITED by how much you can put in a subject line, but it really shouldn't be ultra-difficult to write 5 - 7 words that describes the e-mail well in it's entirety.

This is a lesson learned when important e-mails somehow slip through the cracks. It would be interesting to see some studies on the effects of subject lines on open rates for newsletters or other e-mail marketing in this same regard.

[kevinpate]

But, but, but, bad titles make it so much easier to dump the relatively few notes that manage to bypass the junk/bulk filters I have in place. Don't go and get all creative on me now, 'cause I'm not wanting to grow a whole new crop of filters this year iffin I can avoid it :)

[D_Blackwell]

I think it's fascinating that the response to this thread is only from Senior members and higher. I've been watching this since pageoneresults made the first post, and expected to see more activity.

The subject line of an email is as important as any first impression. It should give an absolutely clear overview of what to expect. I view their use and importance much as I do when starting a thread here. There is a lot going on, and people have only so much time to allot. A clear Subject and Meta Description greatly increases the chance of getting extra consideration.

It drives me crazy when someone insists upon sending me a whole new email during the back and forth of a single subject. What came before is often helpful for reference, though I might cut out anything that becomes extraneous.

Often, I need to hang on to correspondence for a while. Very few people write Subject lines that are useful. This is proven time and again when it is impossible to quickly find the email that I know is there. If I really think that it will be needed later on, I'll usually just print it immediately for the files.

Bad Subject lines irritate me, but I've never found a good way to tell most people how to make things easier and more efficient for everyone. (Thin skinned folk being so prevalent.)

[g1smd]

When changing subject I usually start a new mail with a new subject.

If they have changed the subject then they get it back as: RE: New Subject (WAS: Old Subject) and on the next time around, if they didn't get the hint, then the (WAS: Old Subject) gets dropped as well.