Thursday, July 2, 2009

Happiness is more subject in your subject line.

If a certain lack of variety has weighed on the format of your day-to-day, feed-to-email deliveries, things are looking up at last. Recent advances in dollar-sign technology have brought some strange and fascinating new capabilities to the Email Branding section of FeedBurner's Email Subscriptions feature. Read on, ostensibly for the many useful pictures and descriptions, but really for the danger and excitement only a new checkbox can bring.

First, sign in to your Google Account on FeedBurner and then click your feed's title, then Publicize > Email Subscriptions > Email Branding.



Always want to feature the title of the latest post in your subject line? Just put ${latestItemTitle} in the Email Subject/Title textbox:



Do you often have more than one post per day? You can help your readers uncover exactly how many new missives you've got planned for them in each update. Check the "Change Subject…" box and reveal a secondary subject line to use when 2 or more feed posts are delivered in a single email.

Remember, good subject lines command attention in crowded inboxes.



Behold! The mythical "almost empty" inbox. But in this case, the most recent post's subject line, thanks to ${latestItemTitle}, is right in this FeedBurner-delivered email, shining through.



Have fun with this new feature, but please note that ${pithyRetort}, ${iambicPentameter}, and ${heartfeltApology} are not yet supported.