Writing Persuasive Subject Lines

Transcription

1 Writing Persuasive Subject Lines Adopted from The Insider Secrets To Marketing Version 2006 by Derek Gehl & The Internet Marketing Center

2 Subject lines for promotions... 3 Snag your readers attention by using their names... 6 Keep your character count under control... 6 The secret of understated formatting... 7 The top four proven subject line angles... 7 Relating your subject line to the content of your When to mix it up and when to keep it consistent... 9 The subject line writing process... 9 How to test your subject lines Make sure your subject lines don t trap your message in spam filters The single most overlooked part of every campaign Twenty of OUR tested and proven subject lines Final thoughts

3 Subject lines for promotions According to MarketingSherpa s Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006, the Subject and From lines are the most compelling factors for opening an . The from line is fairly static, seeing it has to be either your name or your company s name. So the subject line is the element you should focus on. It s vital that you get this right. (In fact, the subject line is the element marketers test the most.) Whichever angle you decide to use for a given promotion, make sure it actually makes sense in the context of your message, and that the connection is obvious very early in your letter. In fact, it s now a legal requirement under the CAN-SPAM Act that the subject line must be authentic and not misleading. Below are some examples: General promotions: here s your free report here are our survey results a fun contest can you settle a bet for me? tell a friend, claim your free gift I still have your free gift have you claimed your discount yet win these great prized free webinar your free trial copy free shipping this month only! free tips for your [product] question about project did you know about this? a gift to help you [insert benefit] what s my secret weapon? can we make this work? can you help? something for you to think about have you got this yet? I need your help are you making this mistake? have you made these [#] critical mistakes? what your colleagues won t tell you which one do you prefer? here s what I found are you ready? If you [activity], you need this! here s how to [activity] for less have you stopped doing this? stop losing [money/time]

4 I heard you were looking for [product/service description] cut your [expenses/bills/other negative] in half top 5 secrets for [product/service description] three steps to a better [what product/service will help with] are you missing out? are they stealing your business? how many customers will you lose today? pay less than your neighbors did you ve waited long enough this will transform you [description] good news for [product] owners Holiday promotions: here s your gift here s the top 5 gifts for [activity] lovers here s a great gift idea for [family members] which gift do you like better? [holiday/season] specials from [your company] just in time for [holiday/season] give the gift of [description] this [holiday] have you got a [holiday] gift yet? did you forget someone? do you want to surprise your family? a unique gift idea I made this for you only [#] days left before [holiday] reminder about your gifts New version of product just released: some news about [insert product benefit] I thought you would like to know be the first on your block be the first to get this the tool that will make or break your business have your competitors heard? Limited time/quantity offers: don t miss out you don t want to miss this only a few left! your last chance to get this only 3 more days this offer expires in [#] days there only [#] left there s only [#] days left Local/regional promotions: great news for residents of [city] do you live in ]city]?

5 deal for residents of {city/state} only best deals in [city] great news for residents of [city] New product update/version release: Version [#] has just been released here s a brand-new upgrade here s an update for your system can I offer you an upgrade? are you current? this is the latest edition are you using the latest edition? is your [product description] outdated? Follow-up offers: addition to your purchase use this with [insert product name here] did you miss out last time? before you forget Offline businesses: invitation to our open house here s your invitation a coupon for your next visit will you be dropping by this week? it was good to see you again we ve extended our store hours our new summer store hours I ve set one aside for you Service business: would you like some help? do you need my help? your follow-up appointment can I schedule your appointment: about your last visit I can get this done for you I can get it done by Friday did everything work out ok? is there anything else you need? just a reminder can I help? did you find what you needed? how s everything working out? Phrases to be careful of include: Money back Credit Cards Accepted Extra Income

6 SPECIAL PROMOTION Order today Order Now! Money-back guarantee 100% satisfied Check or money order You want your subject line to quickly catch the reader s eye and say, This affects YOU personally! And it s particularly important that you make sure your messages aren't dismissed by the recipient as spam. Think about it When you check your own incoming , you are probably greeted by messages with subject lines like this: St0kkMarrkett Pick Watch Watcher! [IMPORTANT] Your mortgage Application is Ready Online Prescriptions Made EASY! You ve been sent an Insta-Kiss! Do you open these? Of course not! The subject lines are easy giveaways that tell messages are spam. They don t address you personally, they practically YELL at you and more important, they don t offer a clear benefit that makes you want to read them. The measure of success for a subject line is simple: Does it make the reader want to click through and read your message? You need to send an with a subject line that is impossible to ignore. The recipient should think, I d have to be crazy NOT to have a look at this! Snag your readers attention by using their names If there s a secret to writing a great subject line, it s this: Personalize it. There is no other single technique that will energize your subject lines and boost your response rate as much as personalization. Using someone s name makes them feel as though they have a relationship with you. And the truth of the matter is that nothing gets a person s attention faster than hearing their own name! By personalizing your subject lines you make your seem more authentic and safer to open, because recipients will be more likely to view your as one coming from a trusted source. By using the systems built in personalization codes, you can send messages directed to them personally. When creating your message, just click on the link to see all the personalization codes available. Keep your character count under control Another key point is to keep your subject lines short and to the point. A recent study by MarketingSherpa showed that shorter, more direct subject lines up to 50 characters in length had higher open rates AND click-through rates to be as much as 75%. Try to limit your subject lines to around 35 to 40 characters (about four to five words) or less. Try this: Open up you own inbox and look at the subject lines listed. Chances are the ones that catch your eye are a bit shorter than the others, which helps them stand out. According to eyetrack studies done by MarketingSherpa, people often don t even read entire subject lines or

7 headlines, only the first few words. So it really makes sense to front-load your key benefits in the left side of any subject line. The secret of understated formatting The more your subject line reads like a personal from a friend or colleague, the better the chance that your message will be opened. While your subject lines like a sentence, not a headline. For example, Want to see a movie? instead of Want To See A Movie? or even worse WANT TO SEE A MOVIE? By the same standard, make sure you avoid exclamation marks and dollar signs in your subject lines. They may increase your chances of being flagged as spam and they re sure to set off warning bells in the minds of recipients. Finally, here is a secret formatting trick you can use to make your subject lines more scannable, and easier for your recipients to read: Make sure to use a balance of ascenders (letters like t, l, k, h, etc., that are higher than letters like o, m, n, s, etc.) and descenders (letters like g, p, and y, that stick out below the other letters.) If you write subject lines that include these letters and avoid repeating the same letters close together your subject lines will pop out to your readers and they ll be more likely to open your s. Take a look at these subject lines for instance: OKAY: Bob, seminar schedule here GOOD: Bob, your schedule for today As you can see, the GOOD subject line has a balance of ascenders and descenders, which makes it more scannable and easier for your eyes to read. Here are a few more examples of some eye-catching subject lines: Bob, what s your opinion? Bob, here s your gift Bob, there s only three days left The top four proven subject line angles When you re thinking up subject lines, picture your reader in front of their computer as their eye catches your subject line in their inbox. At that instant, you have to answer the first questions that enter their mind: So what? What s in it for me? Why should I open your message (out of the dozens that are waiting for me)? a. Make an announcement or share news You can make an announcement or share news in your subject line. People want to be the first to find our new things especially if your site covers a specific industry.

8 The news could be about your site (e.g., Lana, we d like your feedback. ) or about the topic of interest (e.g., Michael, here s a new back exercise ) or your product line (e.g., Craig, sneak preview of our latest model ). b. Make the reader curious You can make the reader curious about what s in your message by suggesting that they are missing out on an important offer or piece of information (e.g., Chris, are you making this common mistake? ). It s important when using this technique to leave something to the imagination, usually by posing a question the reader can t ignore. The question can even be part of the first paragraph of your . This way you can convey more information in less space, and get to the main benefits or your even sooner in the body of your message. c. Create a sense of urgency We ve all put off buying something, only to go back to the store the next day to discover that the item is sold out. And when stores have sales, they re always for a limited time. This is a great way to motivate people! You can create a sense of urgency in your subject lines by either limiting time (e.g., Mary, there are just three days left ) or quantity (e.g., David, last 50 copies available now ). This approach works especially well when creating a follow-up mailing. d. Emphasize how the reader will benefit from opening your Another very powerful approach is to state how the reader will benefit from opening your (e.g., Christina, save money every time you fly ). With this angle, you will always be most successful if you write subject lines that state a clear benefit and tell the reader exactly how they are going to save money, save time, make their life easier, etc., by opening and reading your . If you can state a benefit AND create curiosity, so much the better! (e.g., Jesse, the secret that takes 9 strokes off your game ) The key when writing subject lines that emphasize benefits is to consider your product or service from your customers point of view How will they benefit from taking the time to read your ? What will they learn? Is your product/service going to save them time? Is it going to save them money? Is it going to improve their lives in some way? Write subject lines that emphasize these benefits, and we guarantee that you ll dramatically increase the number of subscribers who open and read your . Relating your subject line to the content of your Whichever angle you decide is right for a given promotion, make sure it actually makes sense in the context of your message, and that the connection is obvious very early in your letter.

9 In fact, it s now a legal requirement under the CAN-SPAM Act that the subject line must be authentic and not misleading. No one likes to be tricked, and deception is no way to earn your customers trust and respect. Make sure your subject line relates to your actual message. Within the first couple of paragraphs, your reader should know exactly what the subject line is all about. When to mix it up and when to keep it consistent Here s a good rule of thumb: If someone is expecting an from you a newsletter, a daily quote, or a tip of the week and it follows the same format, keep the subject line consistent. After all, this is why they signed up for, so they ll be looking out for it. If it s a promotional message you re sending because of the relationship you ve built with a customer or subscriber but one they may not be expecting in their inbox on a specific day then try testing two or three subject lines to them to click Open. The subject line writing process Now that you have all this information, you ll need to get down to the business of actually writing some subject lines. If you re having a tough time getting started, here are the five steps we use when we re brainstorming ideas: Step # 1: Just get started. Sit down in front of your computer (or a note pad) and just start writing subject lines. Don t stop until you ve got 20 of them. Write whatever pops into your head. At this point, don t worry if they re too long or if they re grammatically correct. The idea is to get the creative juices flowing. Step # 2: Narrow it down. Okay, NOW you can get rid of all the really bad ones. If it isn t really specific to your message or offer, clean it up or delete it. You should be able to narrow your list down to about five or six subject lines that might be right for this specific promotion. Step # 3: Send it to yourself. It s amazing how a subject line that looks great on paper can sometimes look awful in your browser. Send yourself blank messages with the various subject lines in place. Something that looks good on paper may read differently once you see it in your inbox. Remove any subject lines from your list that don t look great on screen. Step # 4: Get feedback. Take your short list and send it to a few people (the more the better). They don t have to be marketing experts or business owners maybe people around the office, or your family and friends. They ll tell you which ones they d be likely to open, and which ones they d delete. They might even offer suggestions to improve them. Step # 5: Done! With the help of your friends and family, you should have been able to narrow the list down to just two or three really great subject lines. We highly recommend testing these two or three to see which one gets the best response from your list. We always test our subject lines, and are occasionally surprised to find our favorites getting seriously outperformed by other subject lines we didn t like as much sometimes by a large margin! After all, the best subject line has nothing to do with how it sounds or looks it s all about which one gets your recipients to open your ! Remember: Always test! Never assume!

10 How to test your subject lines As you ve probably realized by now, we make sure to test absolutely everything before sending an promotion. Remember, though, that to make sure it s a valid test, you have to keep the body of your the same in each version you send. Here s an example: Let s say you have a golf site, and you re promoting a new tool that will help your audience correct their swing. You ve written a letter, and you want to test a couple of subject lines. First, get a small, random sample of your mailing list the exact number depends on the size of your list. If you have 35,000 contacts, you might pull out a test list of 1,000 for each subject line. Your test list should be big enough to generate a few sales, but not so large that you can t afford to experiment. Next, you need to be able to measure the success of each subject line. If you re using HTML , you can use an image to track your open rate. If your message is plain text, you can link each mailing to a unique URL. Make sure your subject lines don t trap your message in spam filters The repeated use or combinations of certain words in the subject line and body of your can get your message tagged as spam. In addition consumers are beginning to recognize spam simply by the types of phrases spammers use to hype products and services. If you use a number of these phrases in your subject line and the body of your , your opt-in message will be more likely to be dismissed as span! Common words to try and avoid using in your subject lines include $$$ millions of $ apply now earn $ earn extra cash As seen for only hello life insurance your bills financial freedom financially independent your family save big money home based your own losing pounds buy or buying increase our sales incredible deal be your own boss get paid limited time offer make $ receive a special offer why pay more? advertisement We recommend that you use the following tool for checking your for any contact that may alert spam filters. Additionally, you may want to send sample s to AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail test accounts to see if your messages are getting caught in their spam filters. You may also want to check out SpamAssassin one of the more popular spam filters out there. In an effort to keep up with the spammers, SpamAssassin is constantly updating the way it identifies spam.

11 The single most overlooked part of every campaign Besides the subject line, the one thing people will use to decide whether or not they will open your is the From field. According to a study by Labs, 41% of moms who make up one of the largest market segments in online commerce will determine whether or not to open your based on the From field alone. So if the recipient of your doesn t recognize the address in your From line, your is more likely to end up deleted. Here are just a few examples of From fields you might see in your inbox right now: Making Money Should Be T. Augustine Jovan All The Music You Can Im. axuy0xijrs Thomasina Claude [email protected] If you re like most people, you ll probably take one quick look through these and delete all of them without even looking at the subject line! You might take a second glance at the messages with names (even if they re a little strange, like Thomasina Calude), but if the subject line is something like New Job Openings! Starting at $80,000 a year you can be sure that the message isn t really from someone you know and you ll likely delete it immediately. users are just looking for a reason to hit Delete. You need to make your message stand out from the clutter and one of your best tools for doing this is the From field. Use the From field as a way of getting your customers to recognize you. The process of getting people used to your product or company name is what MBA-types refer to as building brand recognition. What this means is that you keep presenting yourself to your customers in a consistent way, so that they learn exactly what they can expect from you. Here s an example: Let s say your site sells bowling products, and you send out a monthly newsletter. If you re not paying attention to your From field, your newsletter might come from ILoveBowling.com in March, Bowling MegaSite, in April, [email protected] in May, and Jimmy Johnson in June.. You can see the problem here The people receiving your newsletter can t recognize a consistent source for their bowling newsletter, and they may end up deleting your messages without reading them! After all, if they don t remember subscribing to anything from Bowling MegaSite, they ll assume it is junk! Also, we suggest that you brand yourself rather than a company. Here s what we mean: Rather then send your from Bowling MegaSite you send it from Jimmy Johnson. Why? Because people can relate to people they can t relate to companies. Your recipients will get used to receiving an from you personally, and they WILL open and from a person more often than one from a company.

12 If your newsletter is consistently delivered from Jimmy Johnson, your recipients will always recognize whom the is coming from. And the longer they receive from that address, the more familiar your brand becomes to them. Twenty of OUR tested and proven subject lines In the testing we ve done recently, all of the subject lines below proved to pull far and away the best response. Now, while some of these subject lines may not quite work for your business, you should be able to study them and come up with some great ideas that will work for you. Our winning subject lines: 1. FREE ticket to my New York Seminar 2. model success at my seminar 3. I ll see you on Saturday 4. test results VONE in 48 hours! 5. your upgrade will expire in 3 days 6. I need your reply in 24 hours 7. cheap ideas for your business 8. I need your help 9. your FREE ticket expires in 24 hours (4 p.m. Thursdays) 10. start your business with my help 11. last chance for FREE traffic 12. here s your free report 13. answers to your questions 14. I ve reduced your payments 15. secret to getting FREE traffic 16. here s your trial coy 17. follow-up to our meeting 18. about your membership 19. your account is ready 20. here is the process I used Final thoughts We ve tackled one of the most important aspects of marketing: writing compelling subject lines that will make people want to open and read your . If you are able to consistently produce subject lines that get your opened and red, you ll be miles ahead of your competition. Personalizing your subject line by including the recipient s name is one of the best ways to grab their attention and assure them that your message isn t spam. Your back office can easily personalize each individual message that you send out, ensuring that your messages get the attention they deserve. By using the personalization codes to automatically merge your subscribers names into the subject line of every ; you can instantly increase your response rate by up to 20%! We also shared the secret of keeping the formatting of your subject lines understate by avoiding capitalization, exclamation marks, and dollar signs so your message isn t mistaken for spam and deleted before it s even opened.

13 In addition, you ve learned about the top four approaches to subject lines that have consistently proven effective in our real-world tests: Make an announcement or share news Make the reader curious Create a sense of urgency Emphasize how the reader will benefit from opening your The next time you re preparing an promotion, give one of these approaches a try. And always remember to keep your subject lines reasonably short ideally between 35 and 40 characters, which is the length that works well for us. Once you ve mastered the art of writing subject lines that get your s opened, we can guarantee that you ll start seeing an impact on your bottom line!