How to Get Your Emails Opened and Read Every Time

If you’ve been marketing your product or service for any amount of time, then you already know that things have changed drastically within the last 10 to 15 years.

People are now more particular and cautious about the companies with which they do business. The internet has made many things easier for marketers, while other things are much harder.

Postal junk mail has turned into electronic junk mail and it’s become increasingly difficult to capture the attention of people.

So how can you ensure that your email and direct mail campaigns will make your prospects salivate every time?

You can grab the attention of your ideal customer and never let go by…using curiosity rousing and negatively themed email subject lines.

If you’re looking to permanently boost your email open rates, your best bet is using both curiosity and negativity driven subject lines. In my experience, these types of subject lines garner open rates well above 30% for email subscriber lists of 5,000 people or more.

Here are a few outstanding performers from highly successful, previous campaigns:

• Don’t take this personally but …
• Bad news
• Thank you
• I’ll never do that again

Why do these types of subject lines work so well?

People are curious by nature. We like investigating the unknown. Take for example being startled awake in the middle of the night by a loud noise coming from the first floor. Your mind races, telling you that downstairs potential danger may lurk. But instead of hiding under the bed, you grab your Louisville Slugger and investigate.

When it comes to negativity driven headlines, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the latest Hollywood gossip or national news—people can’t resist potentially bad or negative news.

As an example of this, say that you’re cruising along your local highway when suddenly traffic slows to a slither. Moments later, out of the corner of your eye you notice a fleet of emergency vehicles parked around a car pile up. As you pass by, it’s only natural that you look at the accident. For reasons unknown to us, we can’t help but be engrossed by a negative scene happening on the side of the interstate.

In both instances, these forces of human nature kick in so strongly that they completely override anything else we might have been thinking about or doing before that moment.

Because this ingrained human behavior is so overpowering, it only makes sense that channeling these same psychological triggers into email subject lines would have a similar stop-and-take-notice effect on subscribers and could improve your open rates.

Feel free to steal one or all of the headlines above and use them in your next email campaign. Then, sit back, relax and watch as your email open rates climb faster than a monkey up a banana tree.

One Comment

  1. Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you’re working with?
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    P.S Sorry for being off-topic but I had to ask!

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