How to Write Click-Worthy Subject Lines

Ask any successful business owner and they will tell you, the faster you can move a potential client from the “prospect” side of the ledger to the “buyer” side, the higher your profit margins will be.

That’s why millions of dollars have been spent studying marketing strategies, client onboarding methods, follow-up contact, and more.

As an online entrepreneur, you have the same powerful tools at your disposal that much larger companies enjoy, but if you’re not taking the best advantage of them, you’re leaving money on the table.

The most powerful of these tools? Your email follow-up sequence.

While the “know, like and trust” factor is important when it comes to making sales, it’s also worth remembering that new subscribers are highly likely to take action. Even if they’ve only just met you, a well-designed follow-up sequence can quickly:

• Establish you as the leader in your market
• Provide proof of concept
• Solidify that “know, like and trust” element
• Turn browsers into buyers

The key is to present an irresistible flow that leads naturally from one step to the next, making each offer along the way—whether free or paid—a “no brainer” your reader would never consider rejecting. In fact, anxiously await your next email (and the next, and the next) and happily fill her virtual cart with your latest products and services.

So yes, getting your emails opened is the one of biggest hurdle you’ll face with your digital marketing efforts - emails and all follow-up sequence are like oxygen for your business, only necessary if you want to live and survive!

It was kind of embarrassing, about a month ago I was conducting a Digital Marketing seminar with 228 people in attendance and a young man raised his hand and said that “email marketing is dead, I am a millennial we don’t read emails’, so I asked him how he got his bank statement via chat, bot or email – he looked down, said: “email”, sat down and said no more.

ALL important communications still take place via email - that is NOT going to change!

Yet, our email inboxes are constantly bombarded and filled with messages we do not want. Promotions and spam and not the good kind, like the spam we eat on Sunday with eggs, toast, and coffee, that’s the good kind.



Recent studies claim that the average adult receives 147 emails per day, I am so GLAD I am above average! – Lol... truthfully, that number is probably way higher for those of us in business or who want to be, because we are always opting in for stuff, right?

Not only that but email systems like Gmail now, so they think, ‘helpfully’ filter incoming mail into buckets or folders, so users can quickly see which emails are promotional and which (presumably) they want to read.

This type of auto-filtering can make it super tough to get the attention of your subscribers.

Even though they’ve asked to receive your emails, the combination of filtering, over-zealous spam controls, and an overflowing inbox means your subscriber won’t always see your email. And if they do, there’s no guarantee they’ll open it.

HOW DO YOU GET NOTICED?

HOW DO YOU STAND OUT?

There are a couple of things you need to do, first and foremost, is deliver valuable content so your readers WILL look for your emails.  Be Consistent , as in the same day of the week and time, and avoid spam words, and use interesting subject lines !

Here, a few more tips the help put the odds in your favor:

• Avoid spammy words and phrases such as “free” or “$$$” and excessive exclamation points
• Using a reputable email management system with good deliverability rates
• Keeping it short. Ideal subject lines have fewer than 60 characters.

Beyond that, though, you must create intriguing headlines that your reader simply cannot resist.

We send over 10 million a month through our system and have seen a few things that work like:

• Ask a question (“Which email provider performed the best?”)
• Personalize your subject with a first name (“Hey Susie, did you grab this yet?”)
• Leave them hanging (“This is my best tip for better branding”)
• Make it time-sensitive (“Ends Thursday: 50% off on all my social media courses”)
• Use multi-media (“How I organized my office in an afternoon – before and after pics inside!”)
• Make it a list (“3 ways to land your first client this week”)
• Use a direct call to action (“Register today”)

Creating great subject lines takes practice, and it’s one of the things we’ll test and constantly tweak. We need to get in the habit of crafting click-worthy subject lines.

Here is an exercise for you : Create a Swipe File
A swipe file is simply a collection of content—in this case, email subject lines—that inspire you in some way. Copywriters and others have used this technique for decades to avoid writer's block, and to create better sales copy, calls to action, and yes, even subject lines.


So, while you’re reading and browsing through your emails every day, don’t just hit delete. Make a note of the ones that make you stop and read them – those are the winner subject line, they MADE YOU STOP!

Which ones worked for you?

Which ones make you want to click?

Which ones made you think?

Start a list and turn to that list when you’re writing your subject lines, you will feel inspired.

You think about that...