Email Efficiency: Subject Lines

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At a client services agency, the producer/project manager likely gets the most volume of email. They send an incredible amount of email and are cc'ed on pretty much everything. Having spent many many years doing that job, I am all too familiar with different email styles, approaches, and missteps. 

With such uncommonly strong opinions on the topic of email, this new blog series was born. In each post, I will focus on a component of, what has become, the most common method for client communication.

First email component up for discussion: Subject Lines.

I have 2 critical goals when writing a subject line for an email:

  1. Correctly describe the content of the email
  2. Make the email easily searchable in the future

To translate those goals into practical examples, below are four key ideas for writing your email subject lines.

  • Include the deliverable name in the subject
    • For example, if sending a meeting agenda, instead of using subject "Meeting Agenda", name the subject "Project Y Meeting Agenda: Homepage Design Review, 1/31/15". This way you (and any of the recipients) can easily find the agenda by searching with logical keywords.
  • Once a thread has begun, do NOT edit the subject line
    • Different email programs thread emails differently so I cater to the lowest denominator and do not change the subject line once a thread has begun. Plus, it is likely that no will notice the change. It is better to put a note in the body of the email.
  • Indicate draft status in the subject line
    • If sending an email to request comments before a final version is sent, I will indicate in the subject line by writing  "DRAFT FOR REVIEW:" in front of the future final subject line. For example, "DRAFT FOR REVIEW: Project Y Meeting Agenda: Homepage Design Review, 1/31/15". This indicates to the recipient what is needed and will appear separately in future search results.
  • Reserve "IMPORTANT" or "PLEASE RESPOND" for REALLY critical emails
    • The overuse of these tags can become a "boy who cried wolf" situation.

And because I am sure you are dying to know, below are a few notes about my formatting preferences. However, I am less concerned with formatting than I am with content.

  • I use title case in my email subjects
    • For example: "Project Y Weekly Status Report" as opposed to "Project y weekly status report"
  • I prefer to use a single colon as opposed to double colons or hyphens
  • When saying "and" in the subject, I will generally use the + sign to reduce the total number of characters in the subject line

What other tips or preferences do you have? Let me know in the comments section below.