Tips for your email Subject line

We write many emails every day without thinking much about the subject line. Then we sit down to draft a marketing email, we suddenly wonder, what should I put in that line -- the first line our readers see -- so that they'll open the email?

Here are tips I gathered for a presentation, "Email Marketing with Constant Contact", that I gave for the Monrovia Chamber of Commerce on September 29, 2010.

• Know your audience (what’s on their mind)
• Include numbers, i.e. “3 Ways to beat the heat”
• Encourage action, i.e. “Offer ends Friday”
• Make it social media friendly
• It might become the title of a Facebook “Like”
• First words relevant (smart phone email)
• Test your subject lines