I will admit, sometimes it can be hard to come up with a compelling subject line.  And knowing that the subject line plays a large part in determining if your message will get opened or not,  you want to be sure you have a good one.

One way to help get your message opened is to ask a  question.  A word of caution before we go any further.  If you ask a question in every single subject line, the novelty and effectiveness will wear off and then you’re  back  where you started from.  But when it is an occasional occurrence, it is a good tactic to help increase opens.

I recently signed up for messages from Pillsbury.  I received my second message today and the subject line said "Have you explored Pillsbury online?"

I thought to myself, "Why, no I haven’t."

With several emails waiting in my inbox, this message was opened first.  This was a welcome message, which, on a side note was confusing, because the message I received yesterday appeared to be a regular message.  There might be some scheduling issues there.  If you are going to put forth the effort to send a welcome message,  that message should go out before any other message. 

The message I received today did a wonderful job of serving it’s purpose.  I opened the message  and learned about the things I could find on Pillsbury.com including recipes, coupons, discount subscriptions and user generated reviews.

My favorite part of the message was the bottom right corner.  "Too busy to browse?"  followed by an invitation to sign up for additional email marketing campaigns from Pillsbury.

One question, the question in the subject line of this message, prompted me to open the message.  Bravo Pillsbury!