Have you heard the one about the broken pencil?

There's no point to it. And that's how I feel about most subject lines. With so many emails in the inbox these days, this handful of words is your one three-second chance to get an open. The problem is the lack of creativity behind them. It's like they all mesh together leaving a tangled knot of discounts and two day sales (or my self-diagnosed dyslexia likes to act up right about the time I start sifting through my Gmail).  On the average, I probably receive 40 promotional messages a day and that's just in my personal email. Want to know which ones I open? Because it's not all of them. Nope. Not even close. I probably open a fifth of them. The rest get marked as read and fall to their demise in the 7300MB chasm of storage that is my inbox. Here are a few personal favorites that got me to click through:

Daily Candy
"The Weekend Guide" - sent every Thursday, contains five things I should see, read, do, buy, love, etc.

While the subject line isn't that enticing, I've come to learn that I always like at least one of the five things. Essentially, they're giving me relevant information and I'm engaging more because of this.

FredFlare.com
"30% Off! We heart Sylvia!"
"the dark side of Disney"
"i'm sorry, but... that's weird"

This company knows how to capture my attention. They continuously change it up and add elements of surprise when you least expect it. Last year they touted this strange fake love story, like an eCommerce soap opera. And every few days you'd get an email about a new character wearing a different product. It worked. I'll have to find an example of that

Terrain
"The Harvest Pantry"
"One-of-a-Kind Finds"
"Autumn Fireside"

I love these emails, always something to look at and very seasonal. Notice that they keep their subject lines short?

Jonathan Adler
"Acid Trip"
"Hello, Sailor"

More interesting creatives abound. I've learned to open these emails for the bright pops of color and unconventional layouts, but these subject lines certainly pique curiosity.

So what did you learn? Brand loyalty is priceless, you have about 50-60 characters (including spaces) to get your point across, and discounts and the word "free" still work, but you won't stand out in this crowd.