Five email marketing tactics from top practitioners, led by subject line craft

Email marketing specialists sharing their latest findings at a recent industry conference put subject lines at the top of the priority list, noting that most recipients only scan the first few characters before deciding whether to open.

Among the tactics recommended: start subject lines with a number, such as '3 ways to,' capitalize the first word for emphasis, use brackets to signal content like a free guide, and deploy emojis strategically, particularly at the start of the subject line or as bookends in the pre-header.

Consistency also pays off. Newsletters that begin with the same emoji in every send see significantly better performance, with the character effectively becoming part of the brand.

Counterintuitively, short and even 'ugly' subject lines can outperform polished ones. One-word and two-word lines such as 'Boo,' 'Yikes,' or 'Urgent' work well, and Salesforce once mailed a campaign with an empty subject line that performed strongly.

The broader lesson is that inbox competition rewards pattern interruption: small, testable changes to the first thing a reader sees often matter more than the body copy that follows.