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CONTENTS
1. Get Into the Mind of Your Customers
2. Types of Headlines
a. FOMO
b. Mysterious
c. Question
d. Personalized
e. Numbers and Lists
f. Controversial
g. Funny
h. Minimal- no nonsense
i. Use Value Prop
3. Don’t Neglect your Preheader Text
4. From Name
5. AB Testing
6. Don’t use the same subject line over and over
7. Don’t get spammy (caps)
8. ALWAYS Test
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1. GET INTO THE MIND OF THE CUSTOMER
As a marketer and business owner, it’s very easy to get into your own head about what may
work and what won’t. You may think “my product is the best, of course they want to buy it” or
“I would click on this subject line, I’m hilarious.” It’s a trap we all fall into, and it’s something to
consider when crafting your subject line. Find a subject line your customers find interesting,
and not necessarily you.
Here’s a few things to consider when trying to step into the mind of your customer:
• You have less than 3 seconds to catch their attention.
• They are trying to eliminate emails, not actively read them.
• So what do you do when the odds are against you? Ensure an immediate connection with
the customer.
You have to stand out among the hundreds of other emails your customer gets every
single day. Chances are, they’re not looking for your email, they’re browsing through
their inbox and quickly deciding what is important and what’s trash. How does your
email subject stand out?
No one wakes up and says “I can’t wait to open all of my emails this morning!” (Well, we
do, but we’re a little odd.) It’s a chore to check their inbox, and they want to get rid of
their emails as fast as possible and move on with their day. Your title must be relevant
enough for them to keep your email.
Give them a reason to read your email. Take your 3 second impression and make it
count.
Turn an interruption into an interest. Get them thinking, “man, I’m glad I got this email,
this is valuable information.” NOT “UGH, another email from these guys? Delete.”
a.
a.
a.
b.
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2. TYPES OF HEADLINES
So how do you get into the mind of your customers, and what subject lines work the best? We’ve
tested thousands of headlines over the years, and have meticulously tracked and analyzed our
results (seriously, we’re starting to think life itself can be quantified in a spreadsheet.) All of the
examples we use below have gotten at least a 20% open rate, and most of them are closer to 30%.
• FOMO - Fear of Missing Out
• Question
• Personalized
• Give your customers a sense of urgency. If they feel like they’re going to miss out on
something, they’re more likely to click on it and see what it is.
• Ask a question that your customer will want the answer to. Find out what is
important to your customer, and ask them questions related to that. Make sure the
content inside your email answers this question.
• Using their name in the email subject make your customer feel like the email
is address directly to them. You can do this by using Merge Tags to add your
customer’s names into the subject. Make sure that you’re collecting your customers’
“Don’t Miss Our 50% Off Sale.”
“Your final chance to win!”
“Sugar: More addictive, deadlier than cocaine?”
“Did you get your 20% discount yet?”
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names if you are using this technique, and make sure you have a default setup if
their name is not available. (i.e. Hey You, Hi There, Friend)
“Molly, Will You Be Joining Us?”
“Thanks for Your Order, Molly!”
• Numbers and Lists
• Controversial
• Using numbers is a clean way to present your information in your email, and has
become widely used by major marketing sources to get a higher open rate. (Notice
how this is called “8 Ways…..? There’s a reason behind that.) People like quick,
concise lists.
• Controversy grabs attention, but be careful with this one. You can’t go for shock
value without backing it up with valuable content. If you’re confident that you can
be controversial AND useful, then go for it. You’re sure to get higher open rates.
“4 Surprising Reasons to Ditch Kombucha”
“5 Clean Eating Myths That You Need to STOP Believing Today”
“You’re failing at dieting. Here’s Why”
“Why Your 5 Year Old is Smarter than You”
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• Funny
• Minimal
• Value Proposition
• We said earlier that just because you think you’re hilarious doesn’t necessarily
mean your customers think you are, but if you’re confident that you can use humor
in your subject lines, then go for it! Make sure to test your funny subjects on your
co-workers first to make sure you’re not missing the mark. (Unless your coworkers
aren’t funny. Then maybe just ignore them. Also, sorry you have to deal with that.)
You can Also AB Test your emails, which we’ll talk about in a minute.
• Sometimes it’s great to just cut to the chase and use some good old fashioned, no-
nonsense subjects. If your value prop is strong enough, your customers will click
quick, even if your subject line is short. In fact, shorter subject lines have statistically
performed better than longer, drawn out subjects.
• Probably the most effective subject line type to get people to open your email.
Appealing to a person’s values will get them to directly relate to your topic, almost
causing them to instinctively open the email.
“Send Your Neighbors Your Trash for Christmas!
“MLEMS, BLEPS, AND BLOOPS”
“And The Winner Is…”
“25% Off All Orders Today”
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“Not Seeing Fitness Results? Change these 3 things”
“Let’s Realize Our True Beauty”
3. DON’T NEGLECT YOUR PREHEADER TEXT
If you’re wondering what Preheader text is, it’s the initial text that is in your email, and is usually
shown as a preview in most inboxes. A lot of email services have a specific spot to enter the
preheader before the actual message.
The preheader can be just as important as the subject line itself. If your subject line isn’t clear
enough, your customer may rely on this small preview to decide in that quick couple of seconds if
your email is worth clicking on.
Verify Your Email Address
Welcome! Thanks for subscribing. We just need you to verify your email address.
Last Day to Enter!
You’re just one minute away from your chance to win.
12:32
12:57
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You can think of the preheader as the long-tail description of your subject line. Below are some
examples of useful preheaders in relation to their subject lines.
Examples:
Subject: Verify Your Email Address.
Preheader: Welcome! Thanks for subscribing. We just need you to verify your email address.
Subject: Last Day to Enter!
Preheader: You’re just one minute away from your chance to win.
4. FROM NAME
5. AB TESTING
The From Name can be almost as important as the subject line when you’re just starting to send
out emails to your subscribers. If they don’t know who you are, or why they’re getting an email
from you or your brand, chances are they will not open it. You can read more about the From
Name and how to determine which one is best in our AB Testing section below.
We are huge fans of AB Testing here at Uproar. In fact, we still AB test almost all of our emails
(Usually because we can’t agree on our favorite one.) There are several different ways to AB test
using different variables, so let’s go over them, shall we?
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Subject Lines
The first, and most useful test is to test two subject lines against each other. For example, you
can try using one straight and to the point line against something a little more playful. This will
help you determine your audience. Some people like no-nonsense, while others may only click on
something if it’s got them LOLing before they even open it.
Here’s an AB Test we’ve done:
Which one do you think did better? Which one would you open? Here’s our results:
Here we see that the fun, light, and somewhat mysterious subject line outperformed the
straightforward subject. Generally, we have found that fun, but not completely over the top,
subject lines do tend to outperform the bland messages.
From Names
As we previously mentioned, your name can be almost as important as the subject line itself.
When you’re just getting started, you’ll want to test a name or two against each other to see if it
affects your open rate. Most email providers will let you test out your “From” Name in your emails
as well. This is important to test if you haven’t already established yourself as a business, or as a
person.
For example, if your name is Becky Smith, but you run Becky’s Flower Shop, you may want to test
both of those names against each other. Are you well known enough to have a person open your
email if you’re just Becky Smith? Or do they need a little more context, like the Flower Shop, to
help them understand who you are.
Once you’ve tested these names, choose one and stick with it going forward. Switching up your
name too often will confuse your customers and can lead to having your emails sent to spam.
Subject A: Why They’ll Name You Most Valuable Cook
Subject B: Last Chance to Test Your New Sugar Free Recipes
Subject A: Why They’ll Name You Most Valuable Cook - 19.04% Opens
Subject B: Last Chance to Test Your New Sugar Free Recipes - 17.1% Opens
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How to Determine the Winner
Like we said, there’s a few ways to set up your AB Test. You can either let your email provider
determine the winner, or you can decide for yourself when the campaign completes.
50/50
The 50/50 AB Test is the best way to determine your audience outright. This splits your audience
50/50 (if you were wondering why we called it that) and sends both subject lines to half of your
group. Once the send is completed, you’ll be able to judge both subjects against each other and
determine which one won. This is great when you’re just starting out, and aren’t sure if your
audience will enjoy funny, short, controversial, or numeric material. Instead of guessing, let the
all-glorious 50/50 AB Test decide. If you are planning on using this method, make sure that you are
going back and analyzing the data and deciding on the winner yourself. AB Testing is worthless if
you’re not using your tests to determine future email subjects. (Hey, we told you we like data, a
lot.)
20/80...or the “up to you” approach
If you have the email provider determine the winner, that means that you’ll only send to a
percentage of your list. We like to call this the “up to you” approach because you’re letting a really
smart computer decide. The subject line with the highest number of opens from that percentage
is then determined, and used to send out to the remaining percentage of your list. We usually
recommend using at least 20% of your list before you determine the winner. This is the right way
to test if you’re just really not sure which is going to be the right subject line. At this point, you
should have already done the 50/50 AB Test, and you already know your audience, you just want
to test different variables going forward. Using this technique could potentially increase your open
rate for the entire email, since you’re going with the most popular subject line. Thanks, smart
computer!
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6. DON’T USE THE SAME
SUBJECT LINE OVER AND OVER
7. DON’T GET SPAMMY
We’d like to think that this is a pretty obvious tip, but you’d be surprised. Now, a lot of people use
email campaigns as a way to send out a weekly or monthly newsletter, and that’s great. Keeping
your customers informed on a regular basis is very important. Using the subject line “Newsletter”
every single time you send out your newsletter is an absolute no-no. What if it’s May Newsletter?
June Newsletter? Week 1 of April 2016 Newsletter? No. None of those. Change up the subject line
every time you send out an email so your emails don’t get tired and monotonous. The same goes
for sales. Don’t just keep sending out emails that say “25% off Sale!” and “Get 25%,” you can be
more creative than that!
Spam filters can be brutal these days, and if you’re not careful about how you send your emails,
you can find a majority of your messages going straight to spam without a chance. A lot of email
providers do spam filter checks to let you know if your message might seem spammy, so make
sure to test that before you send. There’s also a few key things to watch out for:
ALL CAPS: DON’T USE ALL CAPS LOCK IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE. See, annoying right? Most spam
filters will immediately rule out messages using all caps. And even if it does get through a filter, it’s
not going to catch your customer’s attention, it’s just going to be obnoxious. You CAN use caps on
one or two words, though, when you’re emphasizing something specific.
Exclamation Points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoa there, don’t get overly excited. Using too many exclamation
points is an immediate no-go for spam filters. Use sparingly, if you have to. Like one, at the most!
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8. ALWAYS TEST
This is the most important rule of subject lines (and emails in general) so naturally we put it at the
bottom of our list. (Wait, that doesn’t make sense, who did this?)
Always, always, ALWAYS test your emails. Do not send anything out without testing first. Test in
both your browser and on your cell phone so you’re able to see what your customers are seeing
from both views.
First, you’ll want to take a look at your subject line. Does it cut off because it’s too long? Does
it make sense? Does is stand out in the midst of all the other emails in your inbox begging for
attention? Remember that you have less than 5 seconds to make an impression. Make sure it
looks good and reads well in your inbox.
Next, check out the preheader. Does it make sense? Does it apply to the subject line? Does it cut
off in a funny place? Is there content in there that you didn’t want? Preheaders always look a little
different in your browser vs. cell phone so make sure it works in both.
Once you fix any issues you find, test again! Send it to a coworker for their opinion. Make sure
everything works 100% before you send it to your list. Once you’re confident in your amazing, eye-
catching headline, send that baby out to the masses! Hooray!
Bonus Material: How to Increase Open Rates Exponentially
Do you ever wonder what happens to those sad, unopened emails that your customers don’t
click and read? They go to email purgatory along with the spammers, the Nigerian princes, and
the bots. You don’t want that to happen to your beautiful, hand-crafted content do you? You have
important things to say, darnit, and you will be heard.
So how do you get more people to open your emails? It’s easy: the resend. That’s right, just take
your list of people that did not open your first email, and resend it using a different subject line.
(Please don’t send it to your whole list again, only those who did not open it!) Maybe your first
subject line didn’t cut it. Maybe you sent it at a bad time. Now’s your chance to redeem yourself.
Pick a new subject line and a new send time, and resend that sucker. If you’re as data-driven as
we are, you can even go so far as testing subject lines again, and comparing those to your original
subject lines for future decisions.
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Conclusion
Utilize these tips and techniques and you’re on the way to building a stronger following and
customer engagement. Track your open rates and watch them skyrocket! Writing quality
headlines is only the first step of becoming a great marketer. Ensure all of your content follows
these rules to create a consistent message in everything you send.
Keep this handy guide around whenever you’re planning out your next email campaign. We’re
positive that it will help you find the best subject lines for your emails, and in turn increase your
open rates! Don’t forget to test your emails and keep track of everything you’ve sent out. Learning
from the past is the best way to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Want to learn more? Uproar Group specializes in writing quality content and building automated
sales funnels to maximize customer engagement. We offer online courses and training to help
convert potential clients into actual customers. If you’re ready to learn more please contact us at
support@uproargroup.com to talk about creating higher converting content!
