“How To (Almost) Guarantee Your Emails Get Opened…Read…and Acted Upon…Even While Your Customers Are Twittering, Skyping, Facebooking…and Bouncing Among 10 Browser Tabs”
“Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.” (Wall Street Journal, “Why Email No Longer Rules,” 10/12/09)
From: Lawrence Bernstein
Tucson, AZ USA
October 19, 2009
Dear Marketing Colleague,
You’ve got mail…unread email that is.
Like a withering, sub-Saharan watering hole hosting just a few precious drops of water…and with the gnawing certainty of a long dry season to follow… email marketing is dying a slow death.
This means you and your business.
And if you don’t take aggressive action right now, by the time you realize the gravity of the situation, it’ll be too late.
Listen.
Even if you’ve got years of rapport with your list…
Even with highly honed marketing chops…
And even if you create consistently good content and products…
It’s not enough anymore.
Why?
Because we’ve entered a new age.
An age of unparalleled strain on your customer’s attention span. Here’s what I mean.
Just picture this…
You’ve sent a carefully crafted email broadcast to your list.
If you’ve treated them well, they know, like and trust you.
But the problem is your message arrives in their inboxes surrounded by a hostile posse of competition, determined to hijack their attention.
And that’s just the beginning of the problem.
Because not only are you competing against dozens of other email messages at any given time, your average customer is now Skyping, Twittering and Facebooking…while they’re jumping among 10 active browser tabs.
I’m likely not telling you anything you don’t already know.
A business built on email marketing alone is like a building with a flawed foundation. It’s not a question of if it will come crashing down but when.
You also probably know the surest insurance against this coming calamity is the systematic capture of your customers’ postal addresses and storage in a database. Supplementing this with social media list building is almost certainly a best practice.
But is this really the
‘coming crash’ of email marketing?
For many it will be.
Email marketing may be “free” but if it doesn’t pay, there’s obviously no reason to continue doing it.
Unless…you’re prepared to try something different.
Surprisingly, the answer doesn’t lie with something new. In fact, David Ogilvy summed up the crux of this problem we now have over four decades ago.
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. It follows that, if you don’t sell the product in your headline, you have wasted 80% of your money.”
(David Ogilvy)
Translate this to email marketing and the implication is simple.
Get your email opened at all costs…
Obviously, the only way to do this is by crafting a subject line that gets them to stop everything else in that brief two-second window when their eyeballs glance at your subject line.
Your subject line has to be so arresting…so alluring…so full of promise that they have no choice but to click on your message.
So, if you’re like many marketers who compose the subject line as an afterthought to your body message, it’s certain that your email marketing is largely a waste of time.
Of course, the good news is there are potential windfalls to reap once you make the necessary course correction.
But how?
We all have a tendency to write the same types of headlines, for the simple reason that it’s almost impossible to get out of your own head.
Till now.
I’ve joined forces with friend and colleague, Art Crowley, and we’ve jointly created an email marketer’s manifesto called:
“Made You Look: 597 Email Subject Lines
That Dare You to Look Away”
Art is one of the sharpest marketers I know and he comes from a lineage of direct marketing and mail order stars. Heck, I’m convinced his dad read him Scientific Advertising instead of Winnie the Pooh as a bedtime story.
We’ve systematically put over 18,000 email marketing subject lines mailed over the past three years under our microscopes and compiled the 597 best.
The motivation for doing this was a simple one.
As marketers who rely on email, we were committed to doing whatever it takes to get more of our emails opened…read…and acted upon.
And we’ve got no problem with you coming along for the ride.
These are the “80/20 of the 80/20″ most compelling email marketing subject lines we’ve ever laid eyes on. And once you get your hands on this email marketer’s battle manual, you’re certain to see a pop in your open rates.
So at this point, you may be wondering how we compiled these subject lines.
How did 2.7% of the 18,000+ email marketing subject lines pass our brutal criteria?
I wish I could tell you we had all the open rate stats down to the one-hundredth of one percent.
That would certainly be nice. But if someone possessed that kind of data across a broad swath of markets, they wouldn’t be sharing it, now would they?
But that doesn’t mean our standards weren’t Herculean.
We looked for specific subject lines and subject line templates that were repeated again-and-again. Oftentimes, they were used in multiple markets.
These were also subject lines that made us look!
The 597 email subject lines in “Made You Look” are broken down and categorized into 12 separate categories.
Need a subject line that conveys urgency?
Just click on the “urgency” category in the Table of Contents and you’ll be whisked to the section containing dozens of urgency subject lines like:
“Your invitation expires at 11:59 tonight – don’t miss out” (KCI Communications)
See how useful this can be? And you’re getting this across 12 big categories such as curiosity, the big benefit, the compelling question and controversy.
Basically, any email subject line appeal you can think of with all of the heavy lifting done for you…to maximize your open rates.
What will a paltry 10%-20% increase in your email open rates mean to your business? How about 50%?
For many marketers, a 10%-20% pop in open rates could translate to an immediate annual profit increase of 5 figures or more.
However, as you begin experimenting with these, you may discover that some will yield 50% or more.
If you’re a serious email marketer, “Made You Look” will become your tireless subject line writer’s “board of directors”…for you to turn to at a moment’s notice when you need a flash of brilliance.
Look, we’re not shoveling the I.M. %*#% here.
We want you to use this and profit from it because we know that as one of Troy White’s subscribers, you’ll take this and run with it.
Boost your email open rates and get more
copywriting speed with our 334-page mega-bonus
Maximizing your profits means doing what you do better and faster.
So with that in mind, we’re also including the never before released “Breakthrough Copywriting Templates.”
…Need a format template for an ad? You’ll find an abundance in the first section.
…Stuck for a copy transition? Turn to page 210.
….Trouble crafting a killer close? Just go to page 267 and choose from among dozens of examples of deal-closing copy.
They’re all in here. Thousands of copywriting templates.
Headline templates, guarantee templates, emotion words, P.S. templates, metaphor templates, bullets, first line of copy templates, sub-heads and much more!
You may find writer’s block is a thing of the past once you start using it.
We could easily sell “Breakthrough Copywriting Templates” as a high priced stand alone product but we’re throwing it in because we want you to take action now.
Additionally, you risk nothing because you’re covered by our…
No-Risk 30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Test drive “Made You Look” over the next few weeks and see if pleasant things don’t start happening with your email marketing.
If we’re wrong, then just let us know within 30 days and you’ll get back your cash in a flash. No questions or quibbles.
Yours for higher open rates,
Lawrence Bernstein
P.S. Email open rates are falling faster than ever. And a sling-shot will no longer do. You need heavy artillery today just to get your email opened. “Made You Look” has got it.
P.P.S. Take action today and secure our 334-page mega-bonus, “Breakthrough Copywriting Templates.” But don’t delay. We may pull this plumb bonus at any time.
Get INSTANT ACCESS To:
“Made You Look:
597 Email Subject Lines
That Dare You to Look Away”
YES, Lawrence and Art. I’m taking you up on your offer.
Email marketing open rates are falling like a lead weight, so I need an edge today more than ever.
The “Made You Look” Collection is guaranteed to get more of my emails opened…read…and acted upon.
Because I’m one of Troy White’s loyal subscribers, you’re knocking $50 off my investment for the next few days only.
I’ll also receive“Breakthrough Copywriting Templates” as a BONUS.
This massive 334-page copywriter’s “battle manual” is loaded with thousands of templates: headlines, bullets, transitions, guarantees and closes.
I understand you may pull up the drawbridge on this bonus at any time, so I’m acting now.
