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Part 6: Grab Readers With the Subject

This is the sixth article in an eleven part series on how to Grow Your Business using Opt-In lists. Opt-in lists are THE critical success factor of increasing sales.

Because someone has opted into a list doesn’t mean that they’ll actually read the emails a business sends to them. There are many things that compete for a person’s time and attention. Sometimes getting people to even open an email is a challenge. No one wants to waste all the time and effort need to create newsletters, emails and ebooks if they aren’t going to be read. You want people to read them and have their interests piqued. Interested enough to go to your website and look around and most especially purchased your products or services.

There are some good techniques and strategies that will increase the amount of subscribers who read your materials. Also remember that as a business practices these methods they will get better at them. Copywriting skills, developing interesting content, crafting attractive offers are all skills that improve with time and practice. Additionally many of the same skills you’ve been using for years in your existing business efforts will aid you on the web.

One of the many ways you can tempt your subscriber is by providing a well thought out and well written subject. The subject of an email is what is often what determines if an email gets opened. The subject line of your email should be regarded as one of the most important aspects of your emails.

Make the subject line short and concise. It could be a summary for the content of the email so that the recipient will have basic knowledge of the content. It could be a teaser or an opening question. It could be a problem that the email will solve or some other vital need of the subscriber. It is crucial to grab the interest of your readers and subscribers when they first see your email. You want the subject to instantly grab their attention and get them to be intrigued enough to open up your mail.

A good subject should tickle the curiosity of your recipient. It should literally force the recipient to open the mail. Emotion must be ignited to get the mail opened. It is essential to use specific words to get the reaction you need. Use powerful, forceful, emotionally heavy words. Keep in mind that the recipient spends only a few seconds looking over each subject of the email they receive. You must grab your reader’s attention right away.

There are many types of subjects that can be used. You can say that your email contains content that teaches them tips on certain topics. Use keywords and keyword phrases such as, “How to”, “tips”, “Guides to”, Methods in and others like that.

You can also put your subject in a question form. These may include questions like, “Are you sick and tired of your job?” Or “Is your boss always on your case?” Try to stay on the topic that relates to your site because that is what your readers are interested in. Questions like this are effective because they reach out to your recipients emotions. When they have read the question on your subject, their mind starts answering the question immediately.

You can also use a subject that commands your reader. Statements such as “Act now and get this once in a lifetime opportunity”, or “Double, triple and even quadruple what you are earning in one year” often motivate people. This type of subject deals with the benefits your company provides with your product and services. Watch the hype however and make sure that you can deliver on the statement.

You may also use breaking news as your subject. For example, if you deal with car engine parts you can write in your subject, “Announcing the new engine that uses no gasoline, It runs on water”. This creates curiosity with the reader and will lead them to open the mail and read on.

Don’t let the brevity of this article mislead you into thinking this isn’t a very important topic. The headline will determine whether or not an email gets opened. It also sets the expectation from the reader about the email. Headlines are the critical success factor of email campaigns.

There are two other points that need to be discussed before moving onto our next topic “How to Get Your Subscribers Begging for More.” These points are

• Subject Headline Mistakes
• Testing

I get several hundred emails a day and as I’m sure you’d expect most of them get deleted without ever being read. These emails have vulgar subjects or outlandish claims that I know are impossible to achieve even without reading the email. Or they are so obviously a sales pitch for something I have no interest in that hitting the delete key makes the most sense. There is a balance between too little and too much, between enticing and being misleading.

Deleting an email is not the worse thing a subscriber can do. If they are displeased enough they will unsubscribe to your emails and be lost forever. The lists that gets unsubscribed to are those who get people to open an email and then disappoint them with the contents. They make this mistake in several ways.

• The subject lied about the contents
• The subject over promised and under delivered
• The content was so bad that the subject was the only valuable thing about the email

Don’t make a promise or get the customer interested by a great subject line if the email is going to disappoint or anger the reader. The email itself must be valuable, otherwise the reader will feel mistreated, even betrayed by the sender. Provide value and not just sales pitches.

Lets end this article by discussing testing. Autoresponders will provide you with the statistics about your email campaigns, such as what percentage of email got delivered, what percentage got opened and how many got returned. The business will also have many meaningful measurements to gauge the success of an email as well.

• How much business was generated by the email?
• Are people unsubscribing or is the list growing?
• What is the conversion factor of the email (the ratio of buyers to leads)?

It is very important to track and measure these results. Different campaigns can be compared with the less successful ones discontinued. By tweaking the email, for example changing the subject line results of two different headlines can be compared. The headline that gives the best result should be used and the other one dropped.

Test everything and use the best. Test your offer. Test different contents and different headlines. However only change one element at a time. Otherwise you won’t know what succeeded and what exactly produced the change.

Initially when you start testing is difficult because the opt-in list is small. As the list grows you can test different ideas and offers with small portions of your list to see which works better. Then when you do a larger distribution your efforts will be mazimized.

Regardless of the size of your list keep good records and track the results of each email and each campaign. Do repeat the process even with the same group by changing headlines or offers. What someone deletes one day might be the very thing they are looking for the next. As long as the content inside is something your readership will value they will most likely stay on the list.

Part 7 -How To Get Your Subscribers Begging For More