Every subject line in email marketing should convey a given message that leads the recipient into the body of the email itself. But at the same time, you can also use additional buzzwords to make your emails seem even more attractive and eye-grabbing at first sight.
This list presents 44 such words, and it’s been divided in two main groups: the positive list – words you should use, and the negative list – words you shouldn’t. Here are the email campaign subject lines:
The Positive List
Use question words. Questions are naturally good at attracting attention:
- What.
- Where.
- How.
- Why – and any other question that makes sense for a gambling email.
Indicate time or date to suggest that the message is time-sensitive:
- Day of the week – e.g. “Offer ends on Tuesday.”
- Day of the month.
- Specific month.
- Specific year.
Introduce scarcity words to indicate that whatever you’re emailing about will not be around for long:
- Ends – e.g. “Offer Ends on Tuesday.”
- Runs out.
- Closes.
- Goes down.
- Goes offline.
Use glyphs and special characters. But keep in mind that they like to trigger spam filters at some times, so make sure not to make the body of your email sound spammy.
- ✈ – the airplane character used in, for example, “✈ Here’s how to go on a free vacation with {brand_name} new contest.”
(The possibilities are truly endless in this category. Check this out to learn how effective using glyphs can get. Also, here’s a huge reference list of special chars.)
Outrageous unexpected words. You can use them on a “shock and awe” principle. Basically, any word that the recipient wouldn’t expect to see in an online gaming related email is worth a try.
- Fail – as in “You will fail with ____.”
- You’re doing it wrong.
- Made a mistake.
General expression buzzwords:
- Break through the clutter.
- Bring to the table.
- Impact.
- Move forward.
- Make it pop.
Action heavy words:
- Grow.
- Leverage.
- Reach out.
- Streamline.
- Kill it with.
- Diversify.
The Negative List
Free stuff:
- Free – although you can still place it in the subject line, this word is a spam factor, so be careful not to overuse it in a single email.
- Fr.ee – and all the other variants that are used to avoid spam filters. If you want to say that something’s free then just use a normal “free” and not one of those lame versions with dots in it.
Industry no-no:
- Gambling – I know that you’re in online gambling and that your emails are probably about it, but spam filters don’t care, and if you use “gambling” in the subject line, the email will be flagged as spam. It’s the same for these phrases as well:
- Casino.
- Poker.
- Sportsbook.
- Lottery.
- Forex.
Too typical calls to action:
- Call now.
- Act now.
- Check us out.
Too sales-y in nature:
- Earn.
- Make money.
- Sale.
- Numbers presenting an amount of money – they will get your email lost among all the other “offer” emails in the recipient’s inbox.
Personalization:
- Recipient’s name – the surprising fact is that this form of personalization depresses open rates.