Marketing by email is tough. You want people to open your email and read the fantastic, life-changing offer that you have for them. A snazzy subject line should do the trick, right?
Going through my email inbox the other day, some subject lines did catch my attention for various reasons. The reasons were not good ones.
Some of the subject lines had an icon that I could not decipher on my laptop computer. Later, when I checked my email on my cell phone, I could clearly make out the icon.
A couple of the subject lines had the letters “us” at the end. It was in a different font, and it didn’t make sense with the rest of the subject line. Again, this was on my laptop. On my phone, the “us” was replaced with the United States flag.
Some subject lines had specific words in a different font. Not just boldface or italicized — the word was in an entirely different font. I love playing with fonts for headlines on webpages. I am not a fan of multiple fonts when I am reading a page of text like when I am checking my email. And some of the different fonts made the subject line hard to read.
Now, this is from a person reading the subject lines with the naked eye (ok, through prescription eyeglasses). What if I was using a screenreader? If my brain had trouble getting through the subject line, how is a screenreader going to interpret it? Just food for thought about accessibility.
You want your subject line noticed for the right reasons.