Sending well-crafted emails is important at all stages of the buyer journey, not only to make sure your content gets the exposure it deserves, but also to help deliver the right content to the right prospect at the right time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how great your email copy is if you can’t get your subscribers to open your emails.
Without a compelling CTA, most content offers fail to drive results. I like to think of email the same way. Emails have two key CTAs; the main content or offer in the body of the email, and the first and most important CTA – the subject line!
Writing emails for a B2B audience can be tough; striking the right balance of professional and interesting enough to stand out in an overflowing inbox is tricky. That’s why we’ve compiled some of our best-performing subject lines (based on email open rates) from the past few months. I hope this short list of our top performers will give you some fresh some ideas to try out with your audience.
Subject line: Itching for more content marketing tips?
Open rate: 37.4%
We sent this email as a follow up from a virtual event we sponsored this summer. Referencing the theme of the event – content marketing, in this case – can help to refresh your contact’s memory about which event you’re referencing (and how they ended up in your database).
Subject line: Have some free time today?
Open rate: 37.2%
Sometimes keeping it simple is best when it comes to subject lines. This technique tends to work well when the email is sent from one of our teammates (e.g. from Hana vs. from Uberflip).
Tip: Make sure not to overuse this type of subject line or risk annoying your subscribers.
Subject line: Confused about ABM?
Open rate: 34.9%
Using a conversational tone in a subject line can help to pique the interest of your reader and get them involved in a conversation with you before they even open your email. We’ve found that questions work particularly well in a casual tone.
Subject line: There’s more where that came from!
Open rate: 35.3%
We use this subject line pretty regularly to welcome new subscribers to our database and highlight content related to the asset they converted on. I think this one works well because it promises the reader more great content and its casual tone helps it stand out.
Subject Line: SEO Pocket Guide
Open rate: 25.2%
Not the most creative subject line since we just used the name of the SlideShare we were distributing, but since the list was segmented into content writers, their interest in SEO made this subject line pretty successful.
Have you had success with a unique subject line recently? I’d love to hear about it! Let me know in the comments 🙂
Get more B2B email marketing tips in our new eBook: The Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution
