Your email should be personalized – and your subject line should be no different. Give the recipient a summary of the email's content and address them by name. Why it works: Email personalization is now a necessity — and according to Yes Lifecycle Marketing, personalizing your email subject line can increase open rates by up to 50%. Using the prospect's name or company name in the subject line is personalization 101 and naturally makes it more eye-catching. Our brains are pre-programmed to search and listen to our name, so why not use that to your advantage? Mixing in a bit of personalization can also prevent the email from coming off as spam, sale, or too generic to warrant opening. If you don't know much about the prospect, a quick Google search might get you a LinkedIn profile where you can see recent promotions, endorsements, or even Image Masking Service company changes. Or try searching for company press releases, relevant blog posts on its website, or company news that you can use to start a conversation. In action : “[First Name], what would you change in the culture of your company? » “The stage is set for [Company Name] to smash Q4 targets” "Can you spare 5 minutes, [Name]?" "Congratulations on the promotion, [Name]" 2. Short subject lines With so many emails we receive every day, we're all pros at eliminating spam and sales emails with a simple inbox scan. You know subject lines; those that buzz over and over again with subject lines that go off the page. Each letter is capitalized. They punctuate excessively. They all just shout, "Don't open the door to me!" Make an effort to stand out. Using just 3-4 words in your subject line can help you do that. Why it works: Keeping your subject line short makes content more conversational and less sales-focused. It is also worth mentioning that 66% of all emails are now opened and read on mobile devices. Depending on the device and its settings, your subject line may get cut off if it's too long. Zurb's useful tool, Test Subject, has a cool feature you can leverage to test your subject line on specific devices before sending it out.