Do the emails you send out ever get read?

Many don’t. The problem isn’t your content. What makes your message stand out is the subject line in your email header. Your subject line is the few words standing between you and your audience.

Subject lines are the most critical factor in whether people read or ignore emails. 43% of people open an email based on the subject line, according to HubSpot.

And yes, email remains an important and credible marketing strategy to reach investors more reliably than social media. For every dollar businesses spend on email marketing, they net  $10-$36 in revenue. What’s more, 40 percent of marketers say email is the most effective sales channel.

This article will help asset managers understand how to create must-read emails.

Best Practices for Creating Effective Subject Lines

Before you hit send, make sure you have a well-segmented email list and follow these core principles to maximize email marketing success:

Grab attention

Does your subject line create intrigue and stand out?

Use power words strategically. Grab attention with short, strong terms that evoke emotion: discover, proven, exclusive, limited, breakthrough, guaranteed, free, urgent, and transform.

Prioritize clarity

Is your subject line immediately understandable?

Use clear and simple language. Investors typically want direct answers free of jargon or complex terms. In other words, simple language works. 72 percent of readers prefer plain language in financial disclosures and trust the sender more when information is easy to read. Clear writing also reduces misunderstandings and has led to higher engagement rates of up to 70 percent for easy-to-understand content.

Choose specific words over generic ones. Specificity builds clarity. Replace vague words like “update,” “news,” and “information” with concrete terms that tell readers exactly what they’ll get.

Be relevant

Does your headline match your audience’s interests?

Front-load the most important information. Put your key point at the beginning so readers immediately understand why your email matters.

Include relevant keywords. Research terms your target audience actually searches for and weave them naturally into your subject line. This improves discoverability and relevance.

Understand the right context

Does your message fit how and when people might be most receptive?

Think mobile. Don’t forget to think about people who are attached to their cell phones, and vice versa. As of 2025, more than four in ten email opens occur on mobile devices. For higher engagement, keep your subject lines to less than 40 characters.

Timing matters. Emails sent on Tuesday or Thursday mornings generally achieve the highest open rates in business-to-business marketing. If you share urgent market developments on Thursday at 10 AM, you’ll see better engagement than if you send the same message on Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

Emphasize emotion

Does your subject line connect with readers’ feelings?

Create emotional impact. Connect with your readers by appealing to their aspirations, fears, desires, or pain points.

Lead with a positive tone. Positive messaging attracts more attention than negative framing. Focus on benefits and opportunities rather than problems and limitations.

Review for quality

Have you reviewed all subject lines with marketing and compliance colleagues?

Avoid spam triggers. You don’t want your emails to trigger a prospect’s email spam filters. Often-flagged subject lines excessively use all caps and unusual punctuation, or include overly promotional calls like “Act Now on This Investment Opportunity!”

If bounce rates exceed three percent, your sender reputation suffers and you risk being suspended by your email service. To protect your campaigns, keep bounce rates below this threshold.

Consider using AI to create and test email signature lines. Yes, you don’t have to create subject lines on your own. AI tools may help. Two of the many popular online AI tools for creating email subject lines are CoSchedule and Headline Analyzer. The advantages: they can provide fresh ideas and save time. However, the suggestions may be generic and lacking relevance.

Most AI tools also grade subject lines based on length, word choice, clarity, emotional impact, spam risk, and other factors.

Develop an internal subject line review process. Your compliance team should review both subject lines and basic content. Ask three questions: Does the subject line clearly communicate value? Would you personally open this email? Does it maintain your firm’s professional standards?

Email Subject Line Categories That Work

Email subject lines generally fall into seven broad categories, each with pros and cons. The type you choose will depend on your objectives and audience.

Personalized subject lines signal relevance and understanding

Including your client’s name, company, or specific financial situation in your email subject line signals that you know their pain points. Generic messaging, on the other hand, suggests you may have no idea what’s important to them.

For example, an email subject line that begins “Sam, Why Successful Investors Don’t Pay Attention to Financial News (and You Shouldn’t Either)” has historically been 26% more likely to be opened than the same subject line without Sam.

How do you merge prospect names with your subject line? Email automation platforms like HubSpot or Salesforce use ‘merge tags’—placeholders in your email templates—to pull details from your CRM and insert each prospect’s name in the message. By segmenting your audience, you can also customize content to different groups for greater relevance.

Direct value subject lines state exactly what the email contains

People appreciate transparency and efficiency, or should. When your subject line explicitly states what’s inside—a financial planning update, an article on the basics of charitable giving, or a webinar invitation—they can figure out if the information is relevant.

Direct value subject lines like ‘Your Q4 Portfolio Review,’ generally perform well. Average open rates for financial services emails, including value-driven ones, have been approximately 27 percent.

Number-based subject lines drive results

Why do people love numbers? Here are three reasons:

1. Numbers imply thoroughness and expertise
2. They infer organized and valuable content
3. Many investors love data.

When you write “Five Portfolio Adjustments for Volatile Markets” or “Three Tax Strategies Before Year-End,” your readers know they’ll receive five strategies or three tax tips. Subject lines with numbers achieve 57 percent higher open rates than those without.

Question-based subject lines spark curiosity

Asking a relevant question, if done well, should create investor curiosity. Examples like: “Is Your Portfolio Prepared for Market Volatility?”  “Are You Making This Common Estate Planning Mistake? Or “The Retirement Strategy Your Peers Are Adopting (And You Haven’t)” taps into investors’ desire to stay informed and their fear of missing out.

Subject lines with questions can boost open rates by 10 percent or more compared to informational lines, depending on context and audience.

Curiosity gap subject lines hint at valuable information without revealing everything

Email subject lines like “The Retirement Strategy Your Peers Are Adopting (And You Haven’t)” or “What This Market Shift Means for Your Assets” tap into people’s fear of missing out. These subject lines can increase opens, but can become clickbait when readers click through and feel tricked because the content doesn’t deliver on its promise.

Unexpected subject lines can cut through the noise

Want to grab attention? Be unexpected, surprise, or intrigue. You may get higher engagement than typical subject lines. However, you’ll likely lose trust if people feel they are being baited to click. Most prefer clear language and may get frustrated by wordplay or mystery. If you choose this approach, balance surprise with substance.

Examples of unexpected subject lines include: “Are Your Finances Stuck in a Time Warp?”, “Dollars and Sense: Unconventional Financial Hacks”, and “Breaking the Piggy Bank: The Science of Wealth Accumulation”.

Urgency-driven subject lines create time pressure

Subject lines like “Last Chance: Tax-Loss Harvesting Deadline This Friday” or “Limited Spots: Exclusive Communications Training Seminar This Tuesday (Five Seats Remain)” may work well when the urgency is real. Overuse can trigger spam filters, but if they get through, your intended recipients may be more likely to ignore your messages.

Common Questions About Email Subject Lines

Should we use emojis in subject lines for financial services emails?

Emojis might be great for personal communications and less formal settings. For financial services emails, not so much. So use sparingly, and do not use in performance reports, compliance communications, or formal proposals.

How often can we send emails and newsletters without annoying people?

Quality matters more than quantity. Consistently sending valuable content once each week has historically outperformed a monthly schedule, or a timetable based on whenever you think of it. Weekly emails have yielded open rates of up to 27% higher than those of monthly emails.

What’s a frequent mistake wealth managers make with email subject lines?

The biggest mistake many wealth managers make is using subject lines that focus on them, not on client issues and the value their firm brings to clients. Client-focused, benefit-driven subject lines can outperform self-focused ones by 20 to 26 percent or more.

Test Your Results

Testing your email performance is an ongoing process. Review these metrics at least monthly to identify trends, refine your strategy, and ensure your emails reach the right people at the right time.

A/B testing

Test your results with at least two variations to see what performs best. Test one variable at a time: for example, consider changing one word in your subject line, or using a number, or asking a question, creating urgency, or changing the length.

Track conversion rates for specific objectives

Another best practice is to track open rates by subject line category, target market, campaign, and objective. If your email aims to schedule consultation calls, for instance, measure how many recipients opened the email and how many calls were scheduled.

Monitor unsubscribe rates

Are you sending your emails to relevant people? The higher your unsubscribe rates, the more likely you to do damage to your reputation. A good unsubscribe rate in financial services should stay below 1%. HubSpot’s email health tool automatically tracks unsubscribe percentages and compares your performance against industry benchmarks.

Know your spam rates

Similarly, monitoring spam complaint rates is critical to protecting your reputation. Gmail warns that exceeding 0.3 percent can trigger deliverability penalties or, at worst, account suspension. Google Postmaster Tools provides free monitoring of spam rates, domain reputation, and delivery.

Track device-specific performance

Subject lines may perform differently on mobile versus desktop. Desktops can show up to 60 characters of a subject line (typically nine to 12 words). Smartphones, by contrast, can display no more than 40 characters, or six to eight words. If your most important information is beyond 40 characters, mobile users will never see it.

More investors now use smartphones than desktops to access email. You can find out how investors are accessing your emails with tracking tools from Google, HubSpot, MailChimp, and others.

Examples of Effective and Ineffective Subject Lines

This table contrasts effective and ineffective email subject lines in. Specificity, relevance, and clarity may drive engagement while vagueness, urgency, and generic appeals generally fail to connect with investors.

In Summary: Treat Every Email Subject Line as a Strategic Asset

Your subject line determines whether your email gets opened or ignored.

Subject lines are the first impression that determines whether prospects click and read your splendid content or scroll past it. Great email subject lines can help build relationships and drive meaningful conversations. Bad ones drive investors away.

Now write some great subject lines.

Schedule a complimentary strategy session with Dan Sondhelm, CEO of Sondhelm Partners, to strengthen your sales and marketing strategy with expert insights, including how to create subject lines that grab attention and drive engagement.

Frank Serebrin is the Content Marketing Director for Sondhelm Partners. He leads strategic and creative content and marketing services for our asset management and wealth management clients.