Racing for Prospects: 57 Cold Email Subject Lines That Get Responses

When sending an email to your prospects, you’re entering a competition. One person receives around 100-120 emails daily, and yours is somewhere among them! How can you ensure it takes the lead in the race for your recipients’ attention? Whether your message gets opened is literally a split-second decision, so every detail counts.

The key to success is a catchy, unique, and fitting title that will capture the eye of your future customers and make them hit that ‘Open’ button. This task is challenging but attainable. It simply requires time, patience, and practice, just like rocking your first marathon. And we are here to coach you on how to write a cold email like an Olympic champion👟🏅.

Cold email best practices to blow the competition away

Before you jump head-first into writing to prospective customers, let’s see what makes a winning cold email subject line. Remember that this is the first thing a recipient casts their eye on. Wordy, dull, and spammy subjects are going straight to the trash. Instead, aim to keep them:

• Brief – People read more emails on their phones than on desktop devices. That means short subject lines are essential if you want to fit them neatly on the small smartphone screen. Ensure the entire title is visible in your prospect’s inbox by keeping it within 50 characters.

• Engaging – Think about cold email subject lines that catch your eye. The ones that create a sense of urgency and importance to your business. Give the prospect a reason to open your email by adding relevant keywords to really highlight the subject.

• Personalized – Address your prospect directly using their name, the company, mutual connection, or a problem your service can help them solve. Crafting the sales email lines more personal will make them more clickable by 32,7%.

Now that you’ve mastered the basics of writing the best subject lines for cold emails, we’ll look at some examples you can use in your campaigns. Organized into categories, these lines will help you outpace the competition, no matter if you send the first email, a follow-up, or a dedicated offer.

Get a head start with these cold email subject line examples

Getting the ball rolling

You only have one shot at making a good first impression – don’t waste it! This is not yet the time to send personalized messages, so focus on humor and create a bit of mystery, keeping the subject line light and interesting. 

If you already have some information about your potential customer, use it! Adding a personal touch to your prospecting email subject line notably increases the chance of the mail getting opened.

Look at these examples of the best subject lines for cold emails:

1. Still chewing over our offer?
2. Read your post about [post topic]
3. Hello, is it me you're looking for?
4. Wanna see a magic trick?
5. Not for sale!
6. Check it out, [first name]
7. [Mutual contact] suggested reaching out to you
8. Do you know [mutual contact]?
9. Your thoughts on [common event]?
10. Hey [first name]!
11. [Company name] x [company name]
12. Can this get any BETTER?

Scheduling a meeting

Your first email got the response you wanted, and now it’s time to talk business face-to-face. Don’t forget good sales email writing practices when requesting a meeting with the prospect. They need to open that message too!

Giving it another shot

Only 24% of sales emails are opened, so don’t beat yourself down if the first one fails. No athlete gives up on sports if they don’t get the podium on the first race!

When there is no response, or you lose touch with the prospect, try again! This time use one of the following cold email subject line examples:

Proposing a solution

Meet your prospects halfway and suggest a way to solve their problems and eliminate daunting pain points. Ask a question, and mention the benefits of your service. That way, you will quickly spark a conversation, as the recipient will already be interested in your offer.

Making them wonder

Everyone likes a bit of mystery. Your potential clients will be more eager to read an email that arouses curiosity, seems to be telling a fascinating story, or promises something unique and valuable. But don’t spoil the best part – they have to open the email to find out!

Add a punch 🥊 to your subject lines with emojis

Visual elements are an efficient way to convey a message. As specified by multiple sources, adding a simple emoji to your subject line can increase the open rate by 50-60%!

Sales reps are often hesitant about using emojis for fear of seeming infantile or triggering negative associations. Yet, if placed strategically, they make the email title stand out. We’ll elaborate on that in one of our upcoming articles as it’s a discipline of its own, but here’s a little snippet:

No emoji: Wanna see a magic trick?

With emoji: ✨ Wanna see a magic trick? 

No emoji: Are you free on Thursday?

With emoji: 📅 Are you free on Thursday?

No emoji: Here’s what we can do

With emoji: 💡💪Here’s what we can do 

No emoji: This meeting COULD have been an email

With emoji: ✉️🙄This meeting COULD have been an email 

No emoji: Broken link

With emoji: 🚩Broken link

Test your performance with subject line tester tools

So now, you’re ready to go. ‘On your marks!’... just hold on for a moment.

Before you join the emailing race for your leads’ time and attention, put some finishing touches to your cold email subject lines. A few smart online tools will help you test the quality of your titles, make sure there are no spam words, or check the grammar. Use them to gear up for the race and boost your chances of winning the podium!

How to write a cold email? And make it work? Here’s a list of some helpful tools to test your cold email subject lines: