For many small business owners, writing email is a part of their everyday routine. They write emails to clients to checkup on them, suppliers to monitor their inventory, employees to communicate policy changes and even to their friends and families to stay in touch.

Because writing email is such a common activity, many entrepreneurs assume a sense of mastery over the medium. They write so many emails on a daily basis, they simply come to think they are experts at drafting them. However, this couldn’t be further from the case, especially when it comes to email marketing efforts.

Take, for example, the subject line. When entrepreneurs are writing to people with a pre-existing relationship – regardless of whether it’s their friends or suppliers – recipients will open a message regardless of the topic because they know the sender. With promotional messages, however, there is no set-in-stone relationship, and as a result business owners need clever headlines.

“Yes, subject lines are only 50 short characters. Since those 50 characters can have the biggest impact on the success or failure of your email marketing campaign, it’s worth some effort [when writing them,]” American Express OPEN Forum notes.

Hashing out the best subject lines

Crafting the perfect headline is less skill and more trial-and-error. That said, there are a few strategies small businesses can employ to maximize their chances of success.

First and foremost, it’s crucial that entrepreneurs think about what they are writing. When drafting an email for friends and family, a simple “Hey” might suffice for the topic. With promotional emails, that won’t fly. Considering how important the subject line is to generating opens and clicks, it’s worth the time to consider a few different variations of the topic.

If companies want consumers to act now rather than later – and which small business doesn’t – it’s also paramount for business owners to integrate a sense of urgency into their subject lines. Set a deadline for recipients to take action, tell them they can only get sales prices this weekend or that an offer is only good for 24 hours after they receive the message.

While urgency is an effective way to encourage readers to take immediate action, small businesses should avoid using the word “urgent,” as it’s one of the many terms that many email clients will flag as being associated with spam. Other words and phrases include “free,” “lowest prices,” “double your sales” and “save.” Utilizing these words in the subject line is a great way to ensure the customer never even sees the message.

Above all, it’s crucial to remember that email marketing will never be a perfect process, there is always room to improve. By split testing, business owners can identify alternative approaches that may work better than their current one.

“Consider if each time you test, your best subject line does 9 percent better than your worst subject line. Count up all the times of the year you send a promotional e-mail, then do the math on your revenues with that conservative 9 percent estimate. Increasing your conversion rates (or even open rates) by 9 percent with each email drop can have a huge impact on your long-term ROI,” the news source adds.

How do you settle upon your email subject line? What was the best headline you ever used and what impact did it have on your overall campaign?