7 E-mail Subject Line Best Practices to Avoid the Spam and Trash Folders

In a recent Fast15, "E-mail, Mobile, Web and More! 30 Tips in 15 Minutes," FundRaising Success Editor-in-Chief Margaret Battistelli Gardner and I discussed e-mail best practices, including these seven tips for e-mail subject lines that get donors to click through and make gifts.

1. Limit it to 25-35 characters
Some figures suggest that open rates can drop as much as 5 percent when subject lines are too long. People don't like seeing a long message sitting in their inboxes, especially when it's so long they cannot even view the whole thing on their screens. It's best to limit the subject line to 25-35 characters, and never go beyond 50 characters at the most.