Subject Lines: Getting Your Email Opened

There is an interesting discussion going on over at WordWise about crafting e-mail subject lines to help your messages get read. The two best suggestions were to write the subject after you have written the message and to focus on what is in it for the reader (here are the sales numbers you requested.

The biggest faux pas is to use phrases like “you have won” because they trigger spam filters. I learned this particular lesson the hard way. I ran a recycling contest that was won by the local miliary base. I sent an email with the subject line “Congratulations, you have won!” to the base recycling manager. The email got caught in a spam filter and the army base found out that they had won when they read it in the newspaper (oops!). I have been a lot more careful since then.

Has an email subject line that you have written ever backfired?