There’s one part of an email that’s the most important. It’s also one of the shortest and quickest to tweak. Follow some simple tips, and your marketing email open rates will jump!
“We sometimes forget: Every email [mystery item] is a pitch.” — Daniel Pink, author, of “To Sell is Human”
What is this “[mystery item]”?
How do you tweak it successfully?
Let’s first learn the crazy origin story of this mighty email element.
It’s 1978. You’re a 14-year-old boy. You’re growing up in one of the worst cities in America…Newark, New Jersey.
Just 8 years ago, you were living in the slums of Mumbai, India. Then your parents moved the family to New Jersey in 1970.
You excelled at school and graduated high school at 14. An NYU computer professor, Les Michelson, selected you for an intense 8-week course in computer languages that you excel at.
He then gives you a new assignment:
“Look, I want you to go observe how people send out mail,” Les explained.
Michelson continued, “Your job is to convert that into an electronic format. Nobody’s done that before.”
So you go and study everything about these memorandums.
For the next 3 years, you take what works in the physical world. You turn this into a computer program/system called “EMAIL.”
You finally got a patent in your name for EMAIL in August 1982. You are Shiva Ayyadurai, and you’ve invented EMAIL!
One significant element Shiva included, is our “[mystery item]”…
…the Subject Line.
It arose from decades of trial and error. The 20th Century saw billions of interoffice memos. The subject line emerged as a critical element.
Your memo needed to get the attention of the recipient. The memo was competing with stacks of other papers in an inbox.
Many overlook the Subject Line. Lucky for you, it’s short and easily tweaked for the better. It’s the reason your emails get opened, ignored, or deleted.
“On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
– David Ogilvy, legendary copywriter.
Ogilvy and other expert copywriters know that the headline is four times as important as the rest of your marketing material.
How do you quickly polish your subject line?
Smother As Much SAUCE Onto Your Subject Line As Possible!
Use the SAUCE Headline Scoring system for a winning headline. A Subject Line will be short, but try to include as many of these 5 things as possible:
✅ Specific: Be precise and target your audience.
✅ Actionable: Promise a benefit from a simple action
✅ Urgent: They must act quickly.
✅ Clear: Make it readable. Use something like the free Hemingway App.
✅ Emotional: Stir feelings that drive action.
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About Charles Polanski: I help people prosper through online marketing. Click this link to unlock a world of possibilities with online marketing.
This is a guest post written by Charles Polanski. If you wish to be considered for a guest post then please contact me.
