(no subject)

On the topic of powerful, attention-grabbing subject lines:

I once heard a “copywriter” (scammer guru) rant about the specifics of a subject line in a video on YouTube…

“You NEED to include this, and write it THIS EXACT way… ALWAYS do this and NEVER use this”

C’mon…

If you fall for for the mantra that subject lines HAVE to do XYZ, your open rates are gonna be dead in the water - then so will your measely retainer.

As a copywriter (primarily email) who does not follow suit with what idiots are saying, here’s my advice:

Subject lines can be whatever the fuck you want.

Don’t take this literally btw, just keep reading to understand it…

Here’s some picks of subject lines I’ve used for paying clients:

• The scam that saved my nans house

• 3 ways to ruin your ecom store

• I broke up with my girlfriend to pursue my goals🔥💯

• Clueless high schooler makes $30k/month

• How I made $4.7mil without dropshipping

• I’m giving you a Rolex

• Breaking your leg is the key to success

• I can’t believe I saw this on Instagram

• The 6.2 million dollar banana

• This girl went crazy on a sales call

Think some are terrible? Just like gurus would?

Explain my consistent 40-50+ open rate then (my personal record for non-sequenced emails is 74.3%).

The formula for high open rate subject lines is as follows:

Something to spark curiosity

That’s it.

No fancy gimmicks, zero clickbait, and definitely no ALL CAPS or 💸💸emoji spamming 💯🔥🔥.

Take this email for example, “(no subject)” seems like an error…

So most people will want to click to see the failure or find out what the email is actually about.

Please DO NOT use that for clients.

And on that note, definitely don’t clickbait.

Subject lines are just there to serve as a gateway to the email, and what a lot of people don’t know is that “betraying” the subject line leads to audience distaste and lower open rates down the line.

If, for example, you use the subject line “I’m giving you a Rolex”, you can’t go talk about something other than you giving them a Rolex.

Anyway…

Ben Settle introduced me to the real way to write subject lines perfectly, I’ve been seeing multiple of them daily since I first subscribed to his newsletter.

Go subscribe to his newsletter and you’ll see what I mean.

But some advice from experience in analyzing subject lines:

• Numbers, used responsibly, get good opens

• Mechanisms or funny things seem to do well, like “clueless high schooler” and “breaking your leg”

• Questions, when asked properly, are okay

• The word “This” is always good to fall back on to spike curiosity

I genuinely struggled to give a bunch of advice here because subject lines are somewhat natural to me…

Aslong as they intrigue the reader into clicking the email (not tricking them into it) you’ll see good open rates.

Whether you promise something, expose something, be funny, etc etc…

Aslong as the audience responds well, it’s a good subject line.

Once you see how an audience responds, you then lean into it for even better opens.

Just go look at some good subject lines, good ones, not guru ones.

And remember to always write 5-10 for each email you write either in practice or for clients (then pick the best one or combine a couple).

Peace,

Presley

P.S. If you don’t reply with “Subject lines shouldn’t trick the reader into clicking”, I won’t send you my next email on outreach - Pol or Nick may send in the mean time.