Are your email subject lines really just click bait?
Take this short “clickbait” test!
Did the email subject line above bring you to this blog post?
Getting your emails opened is the biggest challenge for businesses using email marketing.
The idea of “The Curiosity” subject lines is attention-grabbing copy to bait the reader to click & open your email via appealing to our innate sense of curiosity.
You need to give them a strong enough reason to open the email.
Other “Curious headline” examples
• 4 Hazards to your eyes from reading screens you won’t believe are true
• 5 Health foods that age you faster
• A red wallet seed to increase bottom line profits
Using different kinds of subject lines & first sentence combinations can keep your email recipients interested, entertained, curious & opening your emails.
Curiosity emails have been around for years so, make sure you give value if you’re going to use it as people are wise to it; and if used to frequently; it will diminish the trust you have with the email list.
Curiosity subject lines are even more persuasive than self-interest subject lines
Example of self-interest subject lines:
• Get Rid of Money Troubles For Ever
• Meet your life partner in under 30 days
• Get [this terrific gain] for [cheap/no-effort/…]
Curiosity headlines can attract your reader when your message resonates with their desires.
To learn more about curiosity subject lines Google:
• Top curiosity subject lines
• Top curiosity email subject lines
• Top curiosity copy
You can change out the word “top” for best, list, whatever…
Also, scroll down to bottom of each page & look at:
Searches related to {your search term}
Ie
Don’t spend more money on advertising until you improve your email open rates
Three things to think about:
If I click the link below I will get my open rates increased?
If I click the link below I will get higher click-through rate?
Reason #1: Do they or don’t they know me?
If they know, like & trust me they are more likely to open my email. (NOT Guaranteed)
They might not know me because:
they don’t know me (because I sent a prospecting email)
they forgot who I am (I email infrequently)
they can’t remember joining my list (Contest entry, a JV giveaway…)
Either way, they are predisposed to ignore emails from people they don’t know, forgot, don’t get much value from, don’t like or don’t trust. That means, you must make every effort to work on Reason 2: The emails don’t get opened & get them opened.
You can’t tackle Reason 3: They don’t take the desired action until you resolve Reason 2: Why my emails don’t get opened
You can’t visit a website or download a PDF; if you never opened the email.
Reason 2: Why my emails don’t get opened
How do I get them to open my emails?
To get them to open the email I need to understand the two most important elements of an email
The Subject line
The first sentence of the email
Why?
The only 3 things an email recipient sees before (s)he decides to open it or NOT are:
From line
Subject line
First sentence
We covered the “From line” already.
The next elements we need to examine is The Subject line & The first sentence of the email
The subject line must get their attention! Examples subject: biz-owner-name, a question about your online reviews
If you are a business owner who cares about his online reputation would an email with a subject line about your online reviews grab your attention?
If you’re over 55 with failing eyesight would this subject line grab your attention?
subject: Take this to improve your eyesight & slow down vision degeneration
Can you see how a powerful subject line will get the reader’s ATTENTION?
The next sub-element to fix from Reason 2: Why my emails don’t get opened is the “First sentence” Example
Is this your bad Yelp review?
If your 55 or older I don’t need to tell you; your vision is fading fast but a new…
Can you see the power of the subject line & the first sentence working together to create curiosity in the reader mind? Example Subject: biz-owner-name, a question about your online reviews First Sentence: Is this your bad Yelp review?
If you were the business owner would you open this email?
Reason #3: The reader does not take the desired action
After you improve your open rate; you need to work on getting the reader to take the desired action.
The rest of the content of the email has to be congruent with the subject line & first sentence.
The content must create curiosity & motivate the reader to take the desired outcome by promising them a result they want.
You can also use mechanisms like urgency & scarcity to motivate the click.
If we think about the subject line & first sentence in the online review example above & the content of the rest of the email sold you on the merits of a short video that educated you on how to respond to bad reviews & position you as a caring, professional business would you click the link & watch the video?
Now you know the three main reasons why your emails don’t work as well as they could:
They don’t know me or they might not remember me
The email doesn’t get opened
The reader does not take the desired action
Don’t spend more money on advertising until you improve your email open rates
Three things to think about:
If I click the link below I will get my open rates increased?
If I click the link below I will get higher click-through rate?
Email Marketing is very effective. And yet it is still the most underutilized Digital Marketing Activity. Considering that fact that ROI for every dollar spent on Email marketing is about 42 Dollars. There is no reason for not doing it.
The most important thing to keep in mind is to put some though and effort in the Email Text and Subject line. You might need to experiment with a few different variations of your Email Subject line and the Text. And also different Subject on different Day of the week. The Subject that can get you the max readers can be different on the weekends than on weekdays or Friday Afternoon. The email list with business email ids should have different Email Subject Line. The Email Text and Subject should also very by the overall Demographics of the email list.
Here are some rules to make your Emails effective:
1. Short Subject – Keep it 6-8 words and avoid the Hello and Thanks kind of words.
2. Place Important words in the beginning – Remember a lot of emails are actually read on Smartphones.
3. Be very clear and Specific – People dont spend more than 2 seconds reading your subject. So the more your can make it easy for them to understand you the better.
4. Dont Capitalize words – Just Grow up.
5. If there is a personal reference be sure to include it – It will make sure that your email is not ignored in any case.
6. Search Awareness – Use keywords to make sure that your email is searchable
7. Make it look human written rather than the Machine written Bulk emails.
8. Aviod using “Grow by 300%” and “Unlimited Returns” kind of subjects. People know they are so good to be true and they will just delete your emails.
9. Include a link that people could click to Unsubscribe themselves, a link to the Web Version of the email if you are including images and another interesting link that provides then more details.
10. Track how many people actually read your emails. There are various ways you can track this. Just contact us we can help you with that.
11. Remember to Experiment! Failures are great because then you will know what gets you the max readers.
Reason 2: Why my emails don’t get opened