The one line that can ruin your email.

…And the same can make you hero.

You must’ve watched TV series. and, you must be impressed with at least one like I’m with Game of Thrones (though they messed up at the end) and Chernobyl.

Have you ever observed why you watch the next episode after completing the first? and most probably end up binge watching. If you are saying because of great content, you’re probably wrong. go a bit dipper.

It is because of climax of previous episode. what? yes, you read it right. now go back in past when you watched the series and you are completing first episode of a great series. the climax, your favorite character suddenly died, he is going to do something heroic etc. it made you curious to know what will happen next. right?

The same thing in your email is done by one single line. it’s your subject line. Now the question is how it may ruin your email? or make you a hero?

End is just a beginning

Now imagine you are selling something door to door. you knock a door and speak your first line; I am selling so and so. what can be the expected response? ‘No’, ‘I don’t want it’, and sometimes ‘get lost’. The same thing happens when you don’t write your subject line keeping this in mind.

How many emails do you receive each day? well, I get almost 30 to 50 emails a day and I barely open 10 of them. why? because we can read through the emails without opening it. it’s the subject lines that tells the story. generally, we open emails sent from a human. Because we feel there must be something important for us. Most marketers do not understand it and their email does not perform as expected.

So, how should you write your subject line? simple, just like TV show ends their episodes. I link it with the common saying, “End is just a beginning”. just like TV shows makes you curios, angry, happy, or sad. invoke this feeling in your reader through your subject line. you know why you’re reading this post? because you were curious to know which line can ruin your email. the same strategy. However, there is more to it… (again, the same strategy. what is it?)

Now think of this. you wrote a great subject line which can invoke a great level of curiosity but to a wrong person. someone who is not having a partner and you’re writing him “how this one tip can make your kid like Messi”. You know the result, right? so it’s the right audience who play an important role. but we’ll talk about it later. For now, let’s focus on subject line.

So, you know the tactic (invoking an emotion i.e. curiosity, anger, happiness etc.). but be careful with your creativity. if you are promised something great in one line and then you don’t get something up to the mark, it creates a bad impression. so, make sure you give what is being promised in subject line.

Know the audience

Understanding of your target audience is critical while writing your emails so subject lines should be in line with it. you can’t talk in same tone with elder audience and teenagers. let me tell you something. people are smarter than we think. The other day I was checking a Facebook group about nootropics (a supplement that said to increase your focus- google it for more info). I found that people know about the substance more than a pharmacist (literally!!). You need do extensive research to write emails to such audience.

Well informed audience can’t be easily tricked. yes they can convinced easily if done the right way. so contradiction can work well with this kind of audience.

Limit your tongue

Human can read and understand sentence with limited length. How long should be an ideal sentence? the answer is 14. That doesn’t mean you cannot go up or down. but you shouldn’t deviate too much.

There is an web tool to check the quality of your headline. you can use the same for your email subject line as well. it’s called CoSchedule . it shows the score of your headline where 70 and above is considered a good score. The title of this post itself has a score of 86.

You need to make sure you use simple enough but powerful words that can invoke a specific emotion.

These are few factors that can make your subject line impactful and increase the open rate. there are more factors which can impact your subject line which we may discuss some other day.