You spent forty minutes on the newsletter. Good photo, a story you were proud of, two dates people should know about.
The subject line took four seconds. “Band Newsletter, November.”
That is the only part most of your list will ever see. Everything behind it is decided by one line of text, read in a fraction of a second, on a phone, by somebody standing in a checkout line. Getting that line right is the most valuable writing you do all month.
You Get One Line
Roughly thirty to fifty characters survive on a phone screen before it cuts off. Whatever matters has to be inside that.
So front-load. The useful word goes first, not fourth. “March dates” beats “Here are our March dates.” Same information, and the second one wastes the only real estate you have.
Sentence case, not Title Case and definitely not all caps. Capitals look like a flyer, and a flyer looks like something to skip. You want it to look like a message from a person.
One more thing that sounds trivial and is not: your sender name matters as much as the subject. Make sure it says your band’s name and not “info” or an address nobody recognizes.
Specific Beats Clever
The instinct is to be witty. Fight it.
Clever subject lines make the writer feel good and make the reader work. A pun that needs decoding is a pun that gets archived, because nobody is willing to spend effort on an email from a band they like a normal amount.
Specific beats clever every single time. Not because people dislike humor, but because specific answers the only question they are asking: is there anything in here for me?
Light humor is fine when it rides along with the information. “Two shows in March, one of them outdoors” is a bit wry and still tells you everything. “Guess what we’re up to” tells you nothing and asks you to care first.
Lead With the Date or the Town
Here is the simplest reliable formula for a band.
Put a date or a place in the subject line. That is it. Those are the two pieces of information your readers are scanning for, and either one instantly makes the email relevant or not.
- Friday in [your town], plus two more in March
- March dates are up
- We're back at the same room on the 14th
- Three shows, two towns, one weekend
- Outdoor show Saturday (weather permitting)
- New clip from last weekend, and where we're playing next
- Nothing booked until April, here's why
- The song you all voted for is in the set
- Last show of the year is the 20th
- A thank-you, and two dates for February
Read those again and notice what they have in common. Every one of them could only have come from your band, and every one of them is answerable in a second.
The honest ones work particularly well. “Nothing booked until April” gets opened because it is unusual, and because people trust a band that writes even when it wants nothing.
Preview Text Is Your Second Line
The grey text next to the subject in an inbox is preview text, and most bands never set it. By default, the email tool grabs whatever the first line of your email is, which is usually “Hey everyone” or a link that says “view in browser.”
That is a wasted second line, and it is sitting right there.
Every email tool has a field for it. Fill it in. Use it to extend the subject rather than repeat it.
Subject: March dates are up Preview: Two Fridays, one Saturday, and one of them is outdoors.
Together those read like a sentence, and they have told somebody everything they need before they have opened anything. If they open it anyway, it is because they want details, which is a good reason to open an email.
Subject Lines to Retire
Short list, and you have probably sent at least two of them.
- "Newsletter" or "[Band] Newsletter #12." Nobody has ever wanted a newsletter. They want dates.
- Emoji pile-ups. One is fine. Five looks like something a filter should catch.
- ALL CAPS ANYTHING.
- "Don't miss out!" and every other line borrowed from retail email.
- "Hey!" on its own. It says nothing and it reads as a mass send.
- Anything with more than one exclamation point.
If you are stuck, use this fallback: write the subject line as if you were texting one specific person on your list. You would never text a friend the word “newsletter.” You would text them “playing Friday in town, come out.”
That is the voice. The whole monthly template works better with it, and it matters even more when you are writing to the booker half of your list, where a vague subject line from an unfamiliar name gets deleted without a second thought.