When a new subscriber joins your newsletter list, you should send them a welcome email. It is the most important email you will send, as it is the email that subscribers are most likely to engage with. How do you make sure the engagement rates are as high as possible, though? The following content marketing tips will help you write subject lines that get welcome emails opened, and that ultimately improve your email marketing initiatives.

Lots of other factors impact on the success of a welcome email. This includes the content of the email, the reply-to address, and the time the email is sent. When it comes to improving open rates, however, the subject line is critically important.

Anatomy of a Welcome Email Subject Line

.   Use the word “welcome.” Start the subject line of your welcome emails with the word “welcome.” Subject lines, in general, should be descriptive, so you should tell the recipient exactly why you sent them the email.

.   Include a promotion. The recipient has just signed up to your list, so your business, product, service, or information is relevant to them right now. You should, therefore, include a relevant promotion in the subject line of welcome emails to encourage a click.

.   Spelling and grammar. Make sure the subject line is well written with proper spelling.

.   Spam triggers. Avoid spam triggers as much as possible. This includes dollar signs, words written in capital letters, and lots of exclamation points. You should also avoid spam-trigger words like “prize,” “buy,” “order,” “fantastic deal,” etc. To work out if a word could be a spam trigger, just look at the spam folder on your email account. If your welcome email includes the sort of word that resulted in an email being rejected as spam, change it.

.   Length. The length of an email subject line is important to open rates, so you will need to experiment to see what works best. Ideally, it should contain between 45 and 65 characters.

Finally, make sure you test every element of your welcome email’s subject line, including the words used to highlight your promotion. For example, does “save” work better than “sale”? Does offering a discounted rate get better results, and if so, what level of discount gets the most clicks? With tweaking, testing, and enhancing again, your results will improve.