Email Subject Lines You Can’t Ignore
I love country music lyrics. Some of the best lyrics are filled with phrases that we use everyday. But when set to music they take on an incredible quality. Combine a common phrase with a catchy tune and you have turned something mundane and common into something memorable.
Take Brad Paisley’s, “I’m Gonna Miss Her.”
This hilarious song is loaded with common everyday sayings and phrases that when put together and set to music make for an award-winning hit. “Yea I’m gonna miss her, hey lookie there, I gotta bite.” Not great English but simultaneously thought provoking and humorous.
So how do we turn out thought provoking email subject lines in 5-7 words?
It’s no secret what type of email subject headlines work best. They are compelling, relevant, or make an offer. I have found that the most effective approach is what I call the ‘provocative headline.’ The provocative email subject headline causes your target reader to say, “Wait a minute, what did you just say?”
Provocative statements excite or stimulate a response. They may challenge a belief held by your target audience. Identify that key product differentiator/unique selling proposition that gives a soccer-punch to the competition.
I ran an email and online marketing campaign for a security software provider. Our target market did not know that vulnerability scan solutions did not tell you what to fix after identifying security leaks.
Our product takes the data from the vulnerability scanner (among others), analyzes it and provides information on what to fix – saving an incredible amount of time. I ran the headline for the email, “What a Vulnerability Scan Can’t Tell You.”
Because the target recipient of the email most likely believed that the vulnerability scanner was going to tell him everything he needed to know, I consider it a provocative email subject headline. The white paper offered in this email described how vulnerability scanners work in combination with our product and how our product was the perfect add-on to solve the problem they were experiencing. They had a problem – analyzing the massive amount of data – but didn’t know it was a problem that could be solved.
This email campaign enjoyed a 3X response over our other headlines. It worked because it was not a message they expected to hear. It was provocative because it disrupted their expectations about what they thought they were getting. I encourage you to think about your products differentiator/unique selling proposition and how it can be leveraged into provocative headlines for your email subject lines.
Cynthia Nowicki helps technology thought leaders, startups and BtoB enterprises by implementing social media programs that expand the web footprint to attract, capture, convert and retain IT customers. Email me at cynthia@rithims.com or call me at 408-323-8148 for a no obligation assessment of your social media lead generation potential. Subscribe and you’ll receive blog posts by email.
