With the amount of spam that finds its way into our inboxes, it is no surprise that the subject line is now the most important part of a message. Not only does the recipient use the subject line to decide whether you message is spam, they may also use it to file the message and later retrieve.

Spammers typically use subject lines that are vague and meaningless. Therefore, to ensure that your message is not lumped in with the spammers, you should create subject lines that are short, specific and personalized to the recipient. This is particularly true if you are sending messages to new business clients or other professionals who are not yet familiar with your name and email address (family members can likely spot your name out of the sea of spam).

The general rule of thumb is to keep a subject line under 60 characters with the most important details at the beginning of the subject line. Anything longer and you risk having part of the subject line cut off. As for specific subject lines, you obviously want to alert the recipient to the details of the message (it also presents an opportunity to capture there attention). Finally, when it comes to personalizing the subject line, adding the recipient’s first name to the subject line actually goes along way. For example, instead of just putting ‘Here are the sales figures you wanted” in the subject line, personalize by putting “Sally, here are the sales figures you wanted.”

One additional tip for writing email subject lines, there are also specific words that you should not in a subject line; although they are innocent, they are known to trigger spam filters. So if possible, avoid using words such as help and reminder in the subject line because they may land you in with the rest of the spammers.

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