How to write Powerful Email subject lines for Killer Open Rates
Writing on email marketing is something which I love, because email marketing has accounted for 90% of the revenue which I have earned in last 1 year. So it is extremely valuable.
Not only is it cheaper than traditional modes of marketing, it is also more effective since you are communicating directly with your target audience.
However, most Internet marketers face a common struggle – getting people to actually open the e-mail in their inbox. It is a very relevant concern for you since you will get paid only when the recipients will open the email and click on the link in the email.
To use this seemingly simple email marketing effectively, it is not only important to create an impactful email with strong content, but also an equally compelling email subject lines that ensures that the recipient actually opens the email. So if you fail to hit the bulls eye with the email subject line, the email content is no good since no one will end up reading it.
Like any type of marketing, there can be many permutations and combinations of what you write and how you write to the receiver. The key for you is to accomplish the following from your email marketing campaign:
- Getting more clicks in mails
- Getting more open rates
- Less number of sent mails bouncing back
- Less number of users unsubscribing from mails (complaints rate)
All these 4 aspects are really important for your email marketing success. Though, I will keep this article limited to its objective i.e ‘Getting more Open Rates’ with Powerful Email Subject Lines.
Having said this, in this article I will help you on how to accomplish this with ease. There are various aspects to this and we have listed them below.
An average person is said to spend only 8 seconds on an e-mail, so just think of how long you have to convince him to open that mail simply by reading your subject line!! Probably less than 2 seconds!!
Case Study – $690 Million
The most successful internet marketing campaign in recent times was done by US President Barack Obama for his presidential election in 2008 and 2012. The major focus was on social media and internet marketing with e-mail marketing proved out to be the most effective form of fundraising for them.
Believe this – his fundraising mails raised a whopping $690 million with a particular subject line that attracted $2.6 million on its own. This is the power of a strong subject line.
[Simple Takeaway – An email’s subject line purpose is to get maximum opens. Maximum Opens + Strong content = Maximum Revenue]
4 Types of Subject Lines
I will breakdown various types of subject lines into 4 broad categories:
Type 1 – Blind subjects
Blind subject lines are those that do not have any connection with the main e-mail. This is just a subject that has the power to deliver a shock and awe moment to the reader, which makes him curious and compels him to open the e-mail.
Your mail goal here is to make consumers curious. It is this curiosity that gnaws them internally and compels them to open your mail. Sometimes, even controversial subject lines work for you, as they are successful in getting the reader’s attention.
Negative email subject lines also have a higher open rate. Here are some examples of well written negative email subject lines
- “This is how your bank cheats you”
- “This is how your doctor fleeces you”
- “Stupid people earn more than you”
Once he/ she opens the mail, you can give a short introduction about why you have given them such a subject and then mention how your mail connects with the call to action/ click button/ clickable link mentioned.
Type 2 – Highlighting benefits
Your subject lines should clearly specify the benefit that the recipient would get if he reads your mail. This is most suitable when you are confident that you’re sending the mail to the right target group who would be interested in your product/mail for sure.
But remember, this kind of a subject line works like a double edged sword. If your mail reaches a person who is not interested in the product, you could get blocked by him/her instantly!
Writing email subject lines like:
- “50% discount on shoes”
- “10 days to lose your weight”
- ” 5 easy steps to control your finances”
These are examples of how email subject lines can help catch the reader’s attention and prod them to open the mail.
Type 3 – Urgency
Subject lines that call on you to act immediately due to a certain deadline or a pressing target are classified under these.
These subject lines are most suitable for someone who has not been responding or opening your mails for quite some time or to ensure that some stock clearance can be done immediately.
The message, though, is crystal clear that the offers and the conditions mentioned in the mail are time bound and cannot be expected after a certain period of time.
Email Subject Lines like:
- “Offer limited for 24 hours only”
- “First 100 products selling @ 70% discount”
- “VIP offer for 2 days”
These are email subject lines that usually get the reader to act immediately and open the email.
A word of caution here… Do not send a mail about an offer that is not limited for the period you claim it to be. Sending fake claims is the last thing you want to do and it is sure to get you blocked. Also, when you send out offers, be doubly sure that the person who receives would have some interest in it. If you do not follow these ground rules, you are bound to increase your complaint rate.
Type 4 – Credibility
By adding a proof of credibility, you just made your mail an authentically marketed product that people will not hesitate to open.
To do so, you can use such phrases to the subject line:
- “As seen on TV”
- “As seen on XYZ TV show”
- “Best product as per MTV, Voted No. 1 cosmetic company by XYZ).
By adding a stamp of approval to your product or company in the email, you are legitimizing it. People will know that they are getting a product/service that has been successful and has received numerous citations for its benefits. This is one of the best email subject lines to use, but getting a credible person/ organization to endorse can be difficult.
Additional tips
In addition to the types of subject lines mentioned above, here are some additional guidelines that can help you nail the perfect subject line that can assure you of a higher mail open rate:
- Never use just one subject type mentioned above. Use a mixture of them. Make a schedule of the type you will use on each day to avoid over usage of a certain type. Using just one type will lead to a high complaint rate soon.
- Personalize your subject. Try to use the receiver’s name in the mail and subject. A higher level of personalization translates into a greater rate of mails being opened. All the major Email Service Providers have Personalization options available. (See my review of Aweber or Getresponse)
- Try to choose an appropriate time to send a mail. The results will differ, but it has been observed that a mail which reaches an inbox when the person is about to start his day/ start after a break gets more attention than other mails already in his inbox. Therefore sending a mail between 9:30 – 11 AM, and post lunch, between 2 – 2:30 PM, increases the probability of your mail getting opened. In case the recipient is in another time zone, try to schedule the mail accordingly.
- Try to use words like free, percent, reminder, etc as rarely as possible. These should be used rarely when you want to bump up your mail open rates or to sell some limited edition products quickly.
- Keep your email subject lines precise. Try finishing your subject line in 3 – 5 words (to fit subject lines in Mobile browser)
- Use controversial email subject lines to grab attention. They are bound to stand out in a crowded inbox and urge the recipient to open the mail. (But not very frequently)
- Use a mildly negative subject. They are proven to get more open rates.
- The first line of your mail must co-relate to the subject. We mean that this line should be even before Hi!! The preview part of any mail service lets users see the first few words and if this is not engaging like the subject, they may just delete it.
- Test your email subject lines before sending them out to your mailing list. This ensures you do not spend too many resources on a subject line that may not work.
- Include a call to action button in your email subject lines. An interested reader may not want to go through the mail, but may prefer to go to the link directly. As your final goal is of the reader clicking on the action button, this is an important point for you.
- While signing off, use your own name or one that sounds credible at least. Who trusts some nameless, faceless person? A human name makes it easier to trust and it is definitely getting you more reads. The @noreply mails are far too many and it’s the first thing that prompts a user to delete your mail.
- Using numbers gives a strong definitive meaning to your subject and they actually can hold on to wandering eyes, which gets the mail read. Use this for sure!!
Conclusion
While concluding this post, I would just like to highlight a fact that is overlooked many times. The articles and blog posts that you read online usually stem from the experiences of the internet marketers who have written them. Since the experiences could vary from person to person, it is important to see how these strategies fit in your situation and apply them accordingly. So you can get the best results from your email marketing efforts and maximize your gains.
P.S – I will credit all my Success + Learnings of Email Marketing to a Course called Email Domination by Anthony Morrison. If you wish to Learn to do Email Marketing in a proper way then you should also enrol in the course and learn.
Leave your Comments below if you liked the Content 🙂
Customer Value Journey Stages
“Turn your strangers (New Follower) into your Super Fans (Buyers)”
Let me take you on the journey of how you can transfer your strangers to your customer and later on your rapid buyers and raving fans.
So, Firstly let me take you to the introduction section of Customer Value Journey.
I want you to have a proper funnel in place so that it keeps on giving you returns and profits over and over and over again.
Funnel For Your Business
let me take an exam of Russell’s Bansal book: To be rich all you need is 1000 CULT fans of you’re all over the world who listen to you and they are so much crazy for that they buy from you whatever you have to offer.
In the very first meeting with the person you like (whom I am supposing to be a cold prospect), he/she doesn’t even know about you. You are going to set up a reppo with the person in a very first meeting so that you leave a good impression. And this is the starting of that stage where the end goal is conversion.
Now consider this with regards to your Facebook Ads
The very first impression that you will leave in front of your prospect – in front of your the cold people is to give them some value which increases their trust on you. Thats the first interaction.
You are somebody who are into love with someone and now you want to ask someone for marriage ( now this ultimate conversion )
What is customer value journey?
Customer Value journey is basically a Customer Engagement Cycle. The customer has to go through few stages before making any CALL TO ACTION.
It is a process or you can say stages through which your customer went through before taking his/her call to action.
Some of you might not know the meaning of CALL TO ACTION. You had heard this word in so many places, especially on social media business pages.
Okay! Let me explain to you what is called to action means?
It means taking your final decision. For example, if you want to buy some book or software. Making your mindset to buy that thing is called call to action.
When you have decided to buy that book or software and then making your payment is known as a call to action.
I hope you get the meaning of Call to Action.
Now you’re no longer unknown to this word.
Let’s come back to the Customer Value Journey Process.
It’s a journey that a customer goes through your business from awareness about your product or business to your promoters to get to know more about your business.
It’s a cycle of your marketing journey, how you can attract your customer attention toward your business.
Customer Engagement Role:
Customer engagement is one of the most important factors because whatever you put on your business pages, you observe the product value by your customer’s reaction/audience action/engagement/likes/call to action etc.
If you’re not getting any interest or engagement from your audience/fans/followers/customers then you automatically generate a believe that there is something went wrong with your ads or your posts.
So customer engagement is important for every marketer.
Now, let’s talk about the stages of Customer Value Journey
There are 8 stages in which the customer goes through before making any call to action.
AWARE:
The first stage customer value journey is AWARENESS. Awareness about your business/product is very important.
This stage is making someone (customer) getting aware about your business or product that your company exists in the market.
It means an introduction to your business.
You can make them aware through a different medium example:
- Blog Post
- Videos
- Infographic
- Website
It could be anything. In this stage, you are telling them about your business or services or your product.
This is how you can make them aware of your business/product and services.
Now come down to the second stage i.e. ENGAGE.
ENGAGE:
The second stage of customer value journey is ENGAGE. In this stage, you’re grabbing your customer attention through educating or entertaining them by the way of your content.
How customer get interacted with you:
- Reading your blog article.
- Becoming your follower on your social media platform.
- Visiting your website.
- Liked and watched your YouTube channel.
- Participating in your conducted webinar to clarify their doubts and queries.
- Personal mail interaction.
- Giving feedback.
It could be anything. These things count as an engagement which means a lot because customer engagement is very important for your business or product and also you’ll get to know about their taste and preferences.
Make them feel like they are your valuable customer and build a trust. Have a real conversation with your customer.
Now you understand how engagement is important to your brand/business.
Now that you have customer’s attention, you want them to subscribe to your channel in order to let them hear more about your brand’s goods and/or services so that you can eventually convert them into regular customers in the next step.
I am sure you got the hint about our third stage by this statement.
If not, OKAY
Don’t Worry!
Let me explain this statement in more detail in the third step i.e. the third stage SUBSCRIBE.
SUBSCRIBE:
The third stage of customer value journey is SUBSCRIBE.
Your customer takes a FOLLOW UP action.
It means they started following you so that they can get to know more about your offers, product, services, business etc.
They get monthly or weekly or daily newsfeed /information about your upcoming event or currently running offers or it could be anything.
Subscribe means following so that they get a notification about anything related to your business.
- They can subscribe you to your website to get newsletter update.
- Started following you on your social media platform.
- Subscribed your YouTube channel to get the notification about upcoming videos or tutorials.
Hope you understood the role of Subscribe in customer value journey.
The goal is to enhance the trust.
Let’s jump into the fourth stage i.e. CONVERT.
CONVERT:
The fourth stage of customer value journey is CONVERT.
Do you know what covert means is?
Convert means making any small purchase or a commitment.
In this stage customer showing a commitment that they are interested in your product and services.
Basically convert is related to money but in this scenario here the convert means customer commitment either on the bases of a small amount of purchase or by scheduling a demo or webinar. It could be anything.
Its depend on their choice.
Both conditions come under the convert stage.
Whether they are participating in your webinar or buying something in terms of money.
Our goal is to sell a mini product. This is ACTUALLY the real start of business relationship between you and your prospect.
Once you have generated the amount of trust for the first date now you are upto the level that good things can happen in future.
In terms of business: In this step customer paying you money and you giving huge value in exchange.
Your customer feels safe about giving you money even in future.
Now come to the fifth stage i.e. EXCITE.
EXCITE:
The fifth stage of customer value journey is EXCITE.
Excite means a customer is happy with your product and service.
They liked your product and services. What they paid for the product is actually worth it.
It means matching up the customer expectations.
The product value is not about spending money and time but actually enjoying and liking your product and services.
Well, in that case, Quality matters a lot to convert your new customer (stranger) into your valuable customer (rapid buyers).
The sixth stage is ASCEND.
ASCEND:
The sixth stage of customer value journey is ASCEND.
Business End of the Spectrum.
What is ASCEND means?
Well if you are looking for the mean let me tell you it means “Going Toward or Upward or Moving Ahead”
But
In customer value journey it means Buying/Purchasing/Dealing anything in terms of money.
So, don’t get confused and read these lines carefully. You’ll get the point what actually it does!
If you relate this to the actual meaning of Ascend. It sounds similar because the customer is taking a step further.
They are moving ahead as they went through the 5 stages before they have reached this stage i.e. sixth stage.
Let me continue the topic…
So, In ASCEND stages the customer making their first purchase.
This is the stage when the customer takes a call to action. They make a purchase in your offer.
The seventh stage is ADVOCATE.
ADVOCATE:
The seventh stage of customer value journey is ADVOCATE.
It means when the customer giving a testimonial (Feedback, Reviews) about your product or services.
Expressing their experience through some kind of positive review and remarks.
It’s very important to know about customer experience whether they liked your product or not.
It will generate a positive relationship between your customer and your business.
Testimonials are equally important to run a successful business so that other people should know about your product quality and the positive reviews about your business.
And the last stage i.e. PROMOTE.
PROMOTE:
The eighth stage of customer value journey is PROMOTE.
Promote is spreading awareness about your brand in a friend circle.
It’s one person to another. Sharing your experience with your friends and family so that they can also visit your website.
Promotion is required at every stage of customer value journey because without promotion you will not able to connect with your new customer as they don’t know or even heard about your brand or business.
Promotion and Awareness both are important to build a brand or online business.
By following the above Customer Value Journey sequence stages you can make your strangers into your rapid buyers and raving fans.
Use the above strategies to seamlessly move your customers through your Customer Value Journey.
Hope this article wills worth for generating your customer value journey.
How we can push our customer from AWARE stage to PROMOTE stage. I am sure this will definitely help you in generating more traffic and convert.
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Very Good article Saurabh Sir. Its very helpful to me. Thanks