Subject Lines Archives

A headline formula that has sold billions

Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 1:52 pm  
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If a copywriter sold $6 billion worth of products over the years,
would you listen to what he had to say about headlines?
I should think so.
Ted Nicholas is this kind of copywriter.
Ted says the headline is 90 percent responsible for the
success of any piece of copy.
Most copywriters take shortcuts with headlines at
some point, to the detriment of the sales letter.
One symptom of this is the long-winded headlines
you see on many online sales letters.
Rather than take the wrong kind of shortcuts, Ted
recommends his “fill-in-the-blank” shortcut for
writing headlines.
Headlines fall into one of these 11 categories:
1. How to (Blank)
2. Secrets of (Blank)
3. Stacked Benefits
4. Problem/Solution
5. How to/Guaranteed
6. Get Benefit Fast, Regardless…
7. Solve a Problem…
8. Visualize it…
9. Ways To/Reasons Why
10. Problem Solver…
11. If…Then
Here’s an example he gives of a Problem/Solution headline:
“No More Bad Hair Days! Here’s a Proven
Way to Maintain the Perfect Look Any Day
of the Week!”
The next time you brainstorm headlines for a sales letter,
pull out this list.

If a copywriter sold $6 billion worth of products over the years would you listen to what he had to say about headlines?

I should think so.

Ted Nicholas is this kind of copywriter. Sadly, the last time I checked, his book   Magic Words That Bring You Riches (my favorite)  is out of print.

Anyway, Ted says the headline is 90 percent responsible for the success of any piece of copy.

Yeah, I  know. In my last post I argued that openings are the bee’s knees, but let’s hear Ted out.

Most copywriters take shortcuts with headlines at some point, to the detriment of the sales letter.

One symptom of this is the long-winded mega headlines you see on many online sales letters. These often top out at 50-100 words or more.

Rather than take the wrong kind of shortcuts, Ted recommends his “fill-in-the-blank” shortcut for writing headlines.

Headlines fall into one of these 11 categories:

1. How to (Blank)

2. Secrets of (Blank)

3. Stacked Benefits

4. Problem/Solution

5. How to/Guaranteed

6. Get Benefit Fast, Regardless…

7. Solve a Problem…

8. Visualize it…

9. Ways To/Reasons Why

10. Problem Solver…

11. If…Then

Here’s an example he gives of a Problem/Solution headline:

“No More Bad Hair Days! Here’s a Proven Way to Maintain the Perfect Look Any Day of the Week!”

The next time you brainstorm headlines for a sales letter, pull out this list.

And, yep. This applies to email subject lines too.
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Subject line of the week

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 3:06 am  
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My favorite subject line from last week was Ed Dale’s “Why is Ed SO HOT and FASHIONABLE?”

Of course I knew it was a tactic to get me to open the email and figured the email was probably about Ryan Deiss’ Continuity Blueprint or John Carlton’s Simple Writing System and not about fashion. Alas. But I liked it. He’s a fun guy and not afraid to let it show in his subject lines.

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Disconcerting email subject lines

Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm  
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In recent weeks some email subject lines hit my inbox that I found disconcerting. These emails were from marketers.

“Sorry, we’ve got to let you go.” That’s a panic-inducing subject line and even though I don’t have a job (I’m self-employed) it was still panic-inducing rather that curiosity-arousing.

“URGENT DEADLINE” was another panic-inducing subject line because I’m a copywriter and usually have a few client projects going on at once so a subject line like that isn’t particularly calming.

“I love you.” I didn’t like that subject line at all because it’s clear it was gimmicky and my reaction was, “Um, hello, I don’t even know you.” Plus it would’ve been weird if one of my daughters had been looking over my shoulder when it arrived.

So the takeaway from this is to focus on making the reader curious and intrigued when composing a subject line, rather than turned off or panic-y.

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Subject Line of the Week: Of powder rooms, pens and hot-to-trot

Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 8:48 pm  
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I’ve had these subject lines ready to go for a while but I guess last week I was too busy complaining about the cold to write a post.

Speaking of the cold, last week I spent inordinate amounts of time reading free PDFs about European luxury barge cruises from R. Crusoe & Son. I discovered that Donald Staley, who was a copywriter for J. Peterman back in the day, is on the advisory board for R. Crusoe & Son so I signed up for their email list and mailing list. The copy and photos in their travel PDFs are delightful and make for nice reading in the winter. I keep hoping they will pummel me with emails but so far that hasn’t happened.

OK, back to subject lines. My favorite one of the week was “Fit and Fabulous in the Powder Room” by Susan Blais. She’s a devotee of Matt Furey and markets the same type of bodyweight resistance exercises to a female audience.

I’m one who exercises everywhere BUT a health club: in the kitchen, backyard (my favorite), my oldest daughter’s bedroom, living room, and even the powder room. So I was pleased to read in her email that she has done Hindu squats in the powder room. I do mine in the kitchen. Cooking is boring so sometimes I do squats while waiting for things that are cooking on the stove.

Honorable mention goes to Levenger’s “Free Pen When You Perk Up Your Office.” In my case a pen would literally perk up my office all on its own because my work space is usually the laptop and a couch or the laptop in the backyard. But I hardly use pens anymore. Alas.

Craig Garber’s “She…is…hot-to-trot” also caught my eye. As I feared, the email didn’t live up to the subject line. But it was a good attention-getter.

As always, feel free to leave a comment with your own favorite subject lines.

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Oops Emails

Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:30 pm  
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There’s an interesting article in Catalog Success about emails that various catalogs sent that contained mistakes.

These catalogs then had to send out apology emails and almost all of them used HTML emails.

My favorite subject line of the bunch was this one from Urban Outfitters: “Take a Extra 25% off. This time, we mean it.” The email contains pictures of two cats, with one saying, “Don’t cry. Everything’s OK now. Sorry, but we broke the Internet. Don’t hate us, this stuff is complicated.”

PaperDirect also had a good subject line: “Please accept our apologies and get a free umbrella with your order!” You only had to order a minimum of $10 to get the umbrella. Pretty cool.

J. Crew’s was: “With our apologies….” And then the body text headline was, “We’ve made some mistakes….(too many in our mind). I think the headline would’ve made a good subject line.

Anyway, it’s a good article about the ways catalogs have had to man up after sending out an oops email.

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Best email subject line of the week: of beer and dresses

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 6:16 pm  
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My favorite catalog, J. Peterman, is famous for their catalog copy and justifiably so. It’s lifestyle copy at its finest. Whenever an issue arrives I block out time that same day to sit on the couch and read it cover to cover.

Today I’m going to focus on their email copy instead. Their “Up to 63% off everything Beer-esque” was the best email subject line of the week to hit my inbox.

I like that they used a specific percentage – 63% – instead of something more normal, like 50%. In looking over their subject lines for the past year, I see they’ve used the following percentages: 81, 41, 47, 46, 52, 79.

I also like this subject line from last November: “10 items under $71.” They are running a 59% off sale on their website right now (these model roadsters are tempting, are they not?). So J. Peterman likes using those odd numbers and obviously those numbers work for them, so take note.

I’m not a beer drinker but even though this HTML email had pictures of beer and steins I clicked on it anyway, in the desperate hope that their Cortina Turtleneck Dress would be among the beer-esque items for sale.

Hey, that dress would look great with the beer-esque metal Prague chair and the bistro table, so you can’t blame me for trying.

I bought their Italian Riviera dress as a result of their Mother’s Day email last May (a present for myself, cough, cough). The percentage used in the subject line for that email was 20 percent. By the way, I’m wearing that dress in the photo over there in the right sidebar.

Each catalog always has a few dresses that I like so I always, always, pay careful attention to their emails to see if one of my favorite dresses (or the Mrs. Peel leather jacket) are on sale.

It doesn’t matter what their subject line is, I always open their emails, which, as a marketer, is exactly what you want your customers to do.

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Re: the misuse of the Re:

Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 am  
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I’m getting way too many emails these days that have “Re:” at the beginning of the subject line, even though the person isn’t replying to an email.

I’m sure they do it because it increases open rates. But I delete those emails instantly.

Even worse is when they add a message like this at the beginning of the email:

Yo Anita

Got a bounceback for some reason from your email address last
time. Just wanted to make sure you got this in time…

A bounceback. Yeah, right. Tell me another one.

Sorry, but using the “Re:” is inauthentic. Try increasing your open rate with great subject lines and content instead.

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Email subject lines of the week: of mortgages, toilets and marketing geniuses

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 5:59 pm  
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My pick for the best subject line of the week (using my own delightfully subjective criteria, of course, and limited to those that surfaced in my inbox) is Ryan Healy’s “Can’t sell your house? Stop making payments.” Not the most cheerful of topics, of course, but I opened that one right away out of curiosity and clicked on over to the blog post.

Next up is “Emergency Fix for a Clogged Toilet” from Boardroom’s Bottom Line Secrets newsletter. What a practical subject line. I didn’t have a clogged toilet handy at that moment but I was curious enough to read the email immediately. Plus, I was wondering if they were really going to give the answer to that question or just tease the reader, as they are famous for doing in their newsletters. But they did answer it and now I almost want a toilet to become clogged so I can try it.

Mike Geary from Truth About Abs sent out an email with this subject line: “article marketing disaster — don’t use this company.” Notice how there are no capital letters (not even at the beginning) and the subject line is rather long. I couldn’t help but read that article right away even though I don’t use a company for article marketing. A side note: I notice that Mike doesn’t send out emails that are 50-65 characters in width, like most marketers. He’s OK with long sentences. I’ve long wondered if he’s tested this. I also can’t help but note that those in the fitness niche tend to be the best at sending out interesting emails on a regular basis.

Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics used this subject line: “Why we struggle with our writing.” I liked that one. It isn’t dramatic and isn’t heavy on the curiosity but it uses empathy (“we”) and I liked that it wasn’t focused just on copywriting but on writing in general, so I opened the email.

And, finally, this one from Perry Marshall: “the odd characteristic that most marketing geniuses share.” Again note the absence of capital letters in a long subject line. I think longer subject lines are easier to read when only the first letter is capitalized (or there is no capitalization at all). I usually only ever capitalize every word when the subject line is very short.

Feel free to share your own favorite subject lines in the comments.

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10 worst and 10 best subject lines of the year

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm  
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A major email marketing firm posted their 10 worst and 10 best subject lines of the year.

Bruce Wedding posted these as a test at the Copywriting Board. I thought it would be fun to do the same here.

Each question has a best and worst subject line. In the comments I’ll list the right answers and also link to the marketing firm’s original article.

Here goes:

1.
A) Top 12 Email Newsletter Mistakes
B) Target Referrals & Abandons

2.
A) Simple Email Link Change Lifts Clicks
B) Eastern Europe Factbook

3.
A) Buyer’s Guide to Top Survey Vendors
B) CAN-SPAM – Must-Know Updates

4.
A) Your Input, Please: Annual Marketing Questionnaire
B) Best Time to Send Email: Test Results

5.
A) Call for Speakers – Email Summit & Expo ’09
B) 6 Actions to Lift Clickthroughs: New Data

6.
A) Turn Customer Queries Into Profit
B) Your Copy of Annual Email Study Results Enclosed

7.
A) HTML vs Text: Which Works Better?
B) Tailor Lists to Reach Exec Moms

8.
A) Newsletter Design Exclusive Data
B) How Wholesaler Lifted Orders 13%

9.
A) Email Audit PDF: How-to & Checklist
B) Test Your Email Practices; Friday Award Deadline

10.
A) How to Conduct Email Surveys
B) Alert: Analysis of New CAN-SPAM Rules

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Email subject lines of the week: spanking, peeing and organ massages (yikes!)

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 am  
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My favorite subject line of this past week was Clayton Makepeace’s “The Spanking of a Lifetime.”

Plus I liked the content that went with it. Copywriters should read his post about how he lost a recent split test.

I was also very interested to note that he usually only has one day to write a sales letter! Of course he makes a ton of money from these clients, but still, 24 hours to write a 14-24 page financial sales letter is amazing. I hope my clients don’t start getting any ideas!

The other subject line I liked was Matt Furey’s “Massage Your Organ.” I assumed it was going to talk about how the bodyweight exercises he recommends also massage your inner organs. But it was about how in China there are people who will give you massages that specifically massage your organs to remove any, um, blockages, and they’ve done this for thousands of years. Sounds better than a colon cleanse anyway.

Finally, I also liked Ben Settle’s “Why I “Pee” On My Sales Letters.” Don’t worry, PEE is his acronym for “persuade,” “engage” and “entertain.”

Now that I’ve written a few of these email subject line of the week posts I’m starting to wonder…is it possible to use subtlety instead of shock value or entertainment in a subject line and still get a good open rate? I’d like to see more subtlety in my inbox. I use it a lot in my subject lines for clients’ email copy. I might have to post some of them here.

As always, feel free to leave a comment with your own favorite email subject line.

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