The Evolving Newsroom

I was struck the other day by the difference a good headline can make in a news email bulletin. Here’s a few from from my inbox in the past couple of days:

I subscribe to more news than I can handle and am often in a hurry or tired when I scroll through these. I’ve noticed that I mostly only click on emails with a headline in the subject line. I have very little motivation to click on something that says: Afternoon News Direct, or BusinessDay Daily Briefing, or Today’s Headlines and Columnists.

In other words, the subject line works just like a web headline does.

I know these emails are automated for obvious time-saving reasons but I wonder how many click-throughs are lost?