Catchy Sales Email Subject Lines To Grab Attention

If you’re a business owner prepping for a launch, promotion, or simply updating your email funnels for your newest offer, you probably want to learn all about high-converting emails – right?

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we want to first explain the importance of email subject lines, and then we’ll talk specifically about sales email subject lines. Trust us when we say that subject lines are key to making your email marketing campaign a success.

Subject lines are essential to any email –whether it’s a sales email, welcome email, or any other email funnel (also known as an email sequence). Because if you don’t have a subject line, how will subscribers know what your email is about?

Not to mention, 47% of people will open an email based on the subject line alone! 

Basically, if your email subject line doesn’t convince your subscriber to open your email, your email doesn’t get read, and all the effort you put into writing it has been wasted.

And. We. Don’t. Want. That.

BUT, when you know what makes a catchy sales email subject line (and then implement it into your email campaign), you can expect higher open rates (check out our post on this!) and a higher ROI for your email marketing efforts. And we’re all about working smarter, not harder over here at BDCC!

Why Email Subject Lines Matter

An email subject line serves as both a greeting to your audience and an attention-grabbing element that encourages your subscribers to open and read your email. And trust us, you want to do whatever you can to get those emails opened!

The average person gets 100 emails in their inbox daily – so unless your email is a priority for them, there’s a good chance you’ll quickly land in the “to-be-opened-later” folder. But will they actually ever get around to opening your email later?

That’s why capturing your subscribers’ attention right from the start –aka that email subject line – and intriguing them enough to OPEN the email is key. It’s no small task, given that the average email open rate is only 21% across all industries.

What are sales email subject lines?

If you’re wondering what a sales email subject line is…it’s actually as straightforward as it sounds. Sales email subject lines go hand in hand with sales emails that —you guessed it–- are trying to drive sales. 

In contrast, a newsletter or welcome sequence doesn’t necessarily “sell” your subscribers anything, so those aren’t considered “sales” emails.

Together a “sales” email + subject line make up what we call email funnels that will *eventually* sell a new product or service to subscribers. Email subject lines are a vital part of the sales campaign because they directly impact whether or not your emails get opened!

How long should a sales email subject line be?

According to several studies on email marketing by Mar Tech, the sweet spot for email open rates seems to happen when you keep your word count between 6-10 words, which resulted in a 21% open rate. 

In comparison, subject lines with 5 or fewer words generated a 16% open rate, and subject lines with over 11 words or more progressive went down to less than 10% open rates.

In a study by Retention Science, 35% of emails were opened on a mobile device, so it makes sense that a shorter to mid-range subject line works best because mobile devices will show even fewer words than a desktop.

Now let’s get to the good stuff.

What makes a catchy sales email subject line?

1. Spark their curiosity

When your email subject lines give incomplete information, we’re naturally tempted to read on. Promise your reader something, and then deliver it inside the email. But make sure you always deliver the promise! Never leave your reader empty-handed. Ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?

2. Personalize your subject lines

We’re seeing more widespread personalization use in email subject lines. Why? Because personalized subject lines (usually using subscribers’ first name) can increase open rates by 2.6%.

So why not?

Address your subscribers by name (your email marketing platform should have a handy feature to do this automatically), or if you have a segmented list, refer to their unique service or interest –or use whatever information your email segmentation covered.

3. Highlight a pain point

If your subscribers have a specific issue they are dealing with, calling it out in the subject line can make your email hyper-relevant for them. Your people are looking for a solution to that particular issue, so they might think your call-out email is worth the read.

Offer a fresh perspective to address their issue, remind them that they’re not alone in their problems, give practice and give them valuable advice for their specific issue. If you do bring up pain points, deliver what you promise inside your email.

4. Use urgency

While we don’t encourage false urgency, using wording that implies things are only available for a limited time (if they truly are!) in your sales email subject lines can help motivate people to take action –meaning they won’t delay in opening your emails because they don’t want to miss out on your offer!

Urgency is one of the best motivators to get people to take action. A sense of urgency in the subject line can give a 22% higher open rate. There is a reason people use it! Just be careful when and how you use it.

Bonus tip: according to SendGrid, including words like “yesterday” or “tomorrow” in your subject lines tends to have higher engagement rates.

5. Go minimal

According to CoSchedule, email subject lines between 17-24 characters get opened most. We mentioned above that 6-10 words in a subject line are a sweet spot. So it should be obvious that less is more.

Keep them short enough that your subject line doesn’t get cut off, and consider going even shorter so that your email will stand out in a sea of other emails that just blur together in a wave of text inside their inbox.

6. Compliment them

Complimentary subject lines are an easy way to get your emails opened. “Nice work, X,” “Good Job, X,” and “Way to go, X” are all general compliments that both personalize the subject line and entice them to learn what they theoretically did to receive the compliment.

7. Use numerics

When sales email subject lines contain numbers, there is a higher chance your emails will get noticed more inside inboxes. So instead of writing out fifty-four, put 54—or $100 instead of one hundred dollars.

8. Make it open-ended

To increase those open rates, make your sales email subject line open-ended. Don’t give away the ending. Let them wonder what it is enough to click through to find out.

For example, you could use subject lines like, “The most impactful book I read in 2022 is…”, and “The biggest regret I have in my business is…”

9. Give away something free.. and tell them!

If you include some sort of freebie or free consultation call or free shipping and anything free, tell your subscribers…in the subject line! Email subject lines containing the word “free” have a 10% higher open rate than those that don’t.

Not only are you adding value by offering something for free, but you’re increasing your open rates. It’s a double whammy. 

10. Use emojis!

Emojis are killing it in the email marketing world. 56% of brands that use emojis in their subject lines reported higher email campaign open rates. Why not add emojis to your subject line if it matches your brands?

Hopefully, you can see that sales email subject lines are essential if you want to grow a thriving business – especially through your email marketing! Email subject lines are meant to grab your subscribers’ attention so you can build up that like, know, and trust factor through your email –and ultimately land the sale (and help your client solve their issue!).

Putting in the effort to make sure your emails get opened can make all the difference. If you’re ready to move on to the next part of your email marketing, check out our post on how to write captivating emails that convert!

If you need help writing sales emails, subject lines, or anything email-related, check out the BDCC email best practices freebie! Learn the best practices for Email Marketing so you can implement your email strategy more confidently.