Open Me. Now.

YES! Thanks for clicking! Question: Did you open this because the subject line was just too good to ignore? That's what every emailer hopes for, anyway. After all, an email campaign can live or die with its subject line, correct?

LaTease Rikard certainly thinks so. "Fifty characters could be all that stands between you and success in your next email campaign," says a post at her Teasa's Tips blog. The post outlines 15 rules for getting subject lines right. Some highlights:

Read the newspaper. According to Rikard, headline writers face the same conundrum as email marketers—using limited space to entice and accurately describe content. You can learn from their expertise.

Front-load key information. Most email clients allow at least 50 characters—including spaces. Even if you think you're in the clear, it's best to put critical data like prices and keywords at the beginning.

Remember that open rates don't always measure subject line success. Study your web analytics for campaigns with low open rates, but high sales-per-order rates. "That could mean something in the subject line strongly appealed to a narrow segment of your list and could point the way to a more lucrative segmentation," she notes.

Sadly, there is no formula for writing the perfect subject line, Rikard concludes: "What works in one campaign might bomb with the next."

The Po!nt: Learn by writing. According to Rikard's post, the best strategy for subject line success is to think smart, test continually, and use the results of each effort to improve the next.

Source: Teasa's Tips. Read the full post here.