If you look around in any public room, you’ll see people glued to smartphones, all the faces tilted town towards phone screens, eyes scanning.
Likely, catching up, quickly scanning Facebook, memes, news, sound bites, or their emails. With limited real estate and time, marketers need to stick out and make audiences pause.
People check email way more on mobile devices. Character limits in subject lines are between 30 and 40 characters. By the time you write “Don’t miss our awesome…,” you’ve already lost half that space!
Emojis are a simple and charismatic way to stick out in an inbox. They’re naturally fun, and can convey emotion faster than words. We’re visual beings, after all.
While no one is definitive about if emojis are here to stay, an emoji in your subject line can help you:
- Better open rates: More than half of brands using emojis in their email subject lines had a higher unique open rate.
- Save space: An emoji is worth a thousand words.
- Convey emotion: Good marketers spark feeling in customers. An emoji can move the right reader.
- Stand out in a crowded inbox: Images are more influential than words. Colors and shapes stick out.
There’s lots of ways to make a great subject line. But these five best practices for putting emojis in your email subject line are sure to make customers 😂, 😱 and 👏.
Best Practices: Subject Line + Emoji
- Know your audience
- Be purposeful
- Keep it tight and creative
- Use A/B testing
- Stay on brand
- Check device compatibility
Know your audience
Think about your target personas, or ideal audience. Emojis aren’t going to work for everyone. Some personas might see emojis as unprofessional. If you do use an emoji, make sure it helps to convey what you’re saying.
Be purposeful
Not every audience nor every email is a perfect match for an emoji. They should catch someone’s attention. But use them too often, and your emails will get deleted FAST.
Emojis can help boost blasts. They’re perfect for holidays 🎄, special occasions 🎁 and exciting news 🎉. Just remember to provide value and appreciation in your email, not just sell to the reader.
Keep it tight and creative
What will you do with all that extra real estate? Now, you have room embrace your creative freedom. Personalizing the subject line, using less-common emojis, and staying under 40 characters is a challenge, but can reap great engagement. See this example:
“John, life is good!! 🏈🍺🙌”
Use A/B testing
Testing the subject line before sending an email can help you see what’s working—and what’s not 👀. A/B testing, or sending the same email with different subject lines, gives you real data to make a decision on.
Stay on brand
Whether you realize it or not, your businesses has a clear brand. A luxury car company catering to sophisticated people wouldn’t use the poop emoji in a marketing email subject line. But a clothing company getting ready for summer sales might see great open rates from 👙.
Check device compatibility
Emojis use a special language for showing up in web pages and emails called Unicode. But since not all systems 💻 are created equal, different operating systems render Unicode differently. Email clients also have different rendering.
Where can I find emojis?
Your email marketing software may have a function included that lets you browse and include Emojis. You can always copy and paste emojis from websites like getemoji.com, emojicopy.com, and emojikeyboard.org.
