Choosing a Subject Line & Preheader
Subject Line
Your email subject and preheader should grab your constituents’ attention and interest them enough to open your email.
As Salesforce suggests, "The content of your marketing email is, of course, important. But subject lines are part of each and every email, and since they’re usually the first part that subscribers see, they may be the most important.
Your subject line has the ability to get people’s attention and give them a taste of what’s included in your email. The wrong subject line could turn people off, bore them, or cause them to overlook your email altogether. But the right one can entice them to keep reading; once you have their attention, you can share your actual message with subscribers to get them to support your business.
Marketing emails can be powerful, but they’re only as powerful as the people who read them. That’s why you need great email subject lines."
Preheader
Preheader text is seen in the recipient's inbox before opening the email (along with the sender and subject line). Failure to add a preheader means the first text of the email - that reads 'View in Browser' - to be seen instead, which doesn't encourage recipients to engage.
As this article from OneSignal states, "Right after your email subject line comes your email preheader text. This copy is typically the length of a single sentence. Preheader text isn’t a required email field, but it should still be a focus in your email marketing efforts, as it gives you an additional opportunity to communicate the value of what’s inside. Your email subject line and preheader go hand in hand and can make or break your email results."
TinyEmail has many recommendations for how to curate a quality preheader that compliments a subject line, the two biggest rules to enhance engagement include:
- Do not leave the pre-header blank - this is a wasted opportunity.
- Do not use the subject line as the preheader - this redundancy comes off as 'spammy'.
