Emails are better read than dead
An unopened email is a dead email — regardless of how brilliantly designed and written the email would have been if they had bothered to read it.
They didn't bother because your Subject Line (SL) wasn't good enough — wasn't funny enough, intriguing enough, weird enough...whatever enough.
Your Subject Line is the only thing most people see when scanning their Inbox.
The "enough" — the particular strategy you use to hook them — doesn't matter. As long as the SL isn't a clickbait-and-switch (i.e., unrelated to the content inside), you're golden. They opened your email. You now actually have a fighting chance of communicating something.
Here's the problem. Many non-Gen Z business owners and marketers are old-school, accustomed to accessing their email on a laptop or desktop — which allows for more spacious and leisurely Subject Lines.
But the reality is, unless you're marketing to boomers, the vast majority of your readers will be scanning emails on a mobile phone, which only allows for a 6-word Subject Line, on average (even on your iPhone Pro Max).
That means you've got around 35 CHARACTERS MAX (including spaces) to motivate an email open. However...
the exception that proves the rule
You can write a longer Subject Line AS LONG AS the first 35 characters — all by themselves — are able to motivate a click.
How do YOU write an unmissable, unskippable, unbeatable Subject Line? Share your tricks and tips below.