Your email doesn’t matter if no one opens it.
A subject line should be:
A description of what’s written within
Short (this enables preview text to be shown)
Your “Hoping to connect” subject line is non-descriptive and unoriginal. Just don’t send it!
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SalesLoft recently published research around subject line sentiment.
Neutral subject lines got the most replies.
Why? Neutral = Short + Descriptive
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Also consider:
Is it time sensitive? Does a specific action to be taken? Don’t bury the lead. This is the place for it.
Instead of (a seemingly harmless) subject line of “RFP Response” for your urgent email try “Need Approval by EOD on SOW: RFP Response”.
Preview Text
Most email clients will display the first few sentences of what you write to entice the reader to open. By keeping subject lines short, you maximize the amount of preview text shown.