Email is one of the most important tools of every modern professional. This is especially true for real estate agents, who need to keep in touch with various people and manage multiple documents. Thus, if you’re a recruiter trying to hire top performers, it would serve you well to learn how to maximize your emails.

One way is to use templates that you can personalize and customize all you want, increasing the chance of favorable responses. You can learn more here about certain do’s and don’ts to maximize the effectiveness of your templates.

That said, even the most well-crafted emails won’t do you any good if they aren’t being opened. Therefore, you need to invest as much time or even more in your subject line as you do in the actual content of your email campaigns. Remember that real estate agents (and all other working professionals, for that matter) receive tens upon tens of emails every day.

If your email doesn’t stand out by means of your subject line, it will stay unopened and buried under other promotions or—worse—career offers from other recruiters. To prevent this from happening, here are some tips for crafting your subject lines to improve your open rates:

Avoid Spammy Words

The one thing you don’t want to happen to your email is to be relegated to spam. A simple yet effective way to avoid this is to avoid spammy words. When you use sales emails, for example, these words are along the lines of “free” or “now” or “best price.” Essentially, you want to avoid hard selling.

For recruiting emails, it’s a good idea to focus on the candidate rather than trying to sell them the job. You may also want to focus on your expertise or information sharing if you’re targeting passive candidates rather than active job seekers.

Keep Things Short

Nowadays, a lot of people use their mobile devices more often than laptops or desktops. This means that your email subject lines have limited real estate (pun intended). As such, it’s best to keep it short and sweet at about 40 characters maximum. This way, your subject line can be viewed in full.

Do note that this number doesn’t take into consideration the width of letters (w and m, for example, are wider than i and l), so it’s a good idea to conduct tests before sending out your email.

Put Important Words First

In relation to the above, you should also consider the way to compose your subject line so that the most important words come first. You don’t know how busy the recipient is when they receive your email, so it’s best to get your message across as fast as possible.

Again, relating the recruitment to sales, what would you prefer that your customers see first—the products on sale or the amount of savings they’ll enjoy when they buy something on sale? Likely the latter; after all, everyone loves a good bargain. Consider what’s important to your prospective candidates and write your subject lines based on these.

Piggyback On a Trustworthy Figure

To be honest, piggybacking can be considered a spammy technique. However, it can help in building authority. This is important for more experienced agents and real estate professionals, who are likely no longer looking exclusively for high commission splits. The key here is to find that industry authority that will help boost credibility and grab attention.

Use the Title Case

Speaking of authority and credibility, using the title case on your subject line can help establish this quality in your recruiting emails. The title case also helps you emphasize keywords, which further boosts the possibility of higher open rates.

Ask a Question or Tell Them to Do Something

When it comes to piquing curiosity, nothing is more effective than asking an intriguing question. This is especially true when you really make the recipient think about their career and its possibilities. In addition, a question in your subject line can make the recipient wonder—is the answer in the email? This will trigger them to open your message.

Meanwhile, there are also candidates who are more of the take-charge type. For these recipients of your recruiting email, it might be better to place a call to action on your subject line, whether that’s to sign up for a newsletter or to call a hotline.

Conduct A/B Tests

Last but certainly not least, conducting an A/B test is the best way to find out which of your emails are the most open based on your subject lines. This gives you a clearer insight into which ones get the best responses. For example, there may be emails that get opened but don’t get the desired response; with an A/B test, you can figure out which ones of your email campaigns are working or not.

It might also be a good idea to reflect on your own preferences—which kinds of emails do you open and click? Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective candidates and ask: will I open an email with this subject line? Try the same with your fellow recruiters to gather more insights that can help further improve your open rates.