Can you remember the first time you used a chat-up line? Struggling to impress, saying something that would bowl them over and get them focused solely on you? Probably like most of us, after a few spectacular failures you eventually figured out what worked!
Now think about how you address your email audience. Have your open rates improved over time or are they still languishing at the edges of the online dance floor?
The objective of your email is pure and simple - to generate a click. Whether this click is through to your website, or signing up for your newsletter or buying one of your products there and then, unless you convince your recipients to do something you are wasting their precious time and they’ll go elsewhere.
Just like on any dance floor, there’s usually plenty of choice and while you want to sweep them off their feet, your recipient’s primary objective will be to filter out anyone who doesn’t immediately impress (in terms of your email that’s deleting anything that doesn’t instantly hit the mark - which also helps them clear their inbox). So, unless your Subject line clearly shows your intentions and value, and is designed to impress, then you won’t be hitting it off with anyone.
Your contact list may contain hundreds of names and each one you send out goes to an individual. For your Subject line to have widespread appeal it must have relevance and potential to elicit a positive response with each person - and it must make the connection in milliseconds.
If you have a larger list then you have a choice between using a Subject line that has a broad appeal to the whole list (with reduced relevance to all) or using specific Subject lines to specific segments of your list to increase relevance and appeal to each person - but also means a lot more work!.
It is now recognised that relevance beats brevity every time and on the internet, one chat-up line rarely fits all.
So, your Subject line should not be short either, but long enough to show recipients how relevant and useful the accompanying content will be, with an incentive to encourage them take an interest. The quicker you can generate a positive and ongoing interaction the more likely will your emails work.
The subject line: chat up line analogy is a good one because email is a conversation and the more you can make it like a real conversation the better it will work. Conversations that are vague and unfocused will put your listener off, so it pays to test and try out different Subject lines until you get in a groove and know exactly what to say.
The Arctic Monkeys knew what they were about when they sang “I bet (your subject line) looks good on the dance floor”.