Subject Lines are Headlines

Somehow an email decides to disappear from the face of the Earth and it feels like it’s gone forever. Liz gives us some useful tips to try and locate the invisible email.

What annoys me – looking for that email you know you’ve been sent!

You know you’ve been sent that email, but you’re not sure who it came from.  Whether you are a filer (you keep messages carefully organized in folders) or a piler (you keep all of your messages in your Inbox), it can be equally annoying.

We can use the ‘search’ email field by typing in words you want to search, or you can use the ‘from’, ‘to’ or ‘subject’ searches. Or do we just need to start to educate our senders? 

Every day is a learning day – Subject Lines are Headlines!

A newspaper headline has two functions: It grabs your attention, and it tells you what the article is about, so that you can decide if you want to read further. Email subject lines need to do the same thing! Use a few well-chosen words, so that the recipient knows at a glance what the email is about. They’ll also find it easier to find it!

We send billions of emails every day. You need to make sure your message stands out. The subject line often determines whether an email is opened and how the recipient responds. So:

•    Place the most important words at the beginning. 
•    Be clear and specific about the topic of the email. 
•    Keep it simple and focused. 
•    Indicate if you need a response. 
•    Set a deadline in the subject line.