My 2nd Best Email Subject Line Ever
I’ve sent 419 broadcasts to my entrepreneurial list in the past four and a half years.
The other day, Terry Dean asked me to identify the best 25 or so for us to include in The Total Conversion Code. (Shameless plug). So I analyzed all 419 … actually it was 417 at the time… all 417 subject lines and click through rates, looking for patterns.
Anyone have a guess which subject line got the second highest click through rate EVER?
I’ll give you a hint, it was NOT “Disturbed Emotional Copywriting”… that one was just a little above average, despite my best hopes. (A killer interview with Ben Settle by the way)
It also was NOT “I’m so ugly, so very very ugly” –> just average there too, but I particularly enjoyed writing that one!
“Time is running out” was one of the lowest of the losers… if subject lines were like kids in grade school, this one definitely had koodies! (How the hell do you spell Koodies by the way… anyone know the official word on that?)
OK… know what it WAS?
“all my audios are now on iTunes” (they ARE by the way – Glenn Livingston Mp3s)
The CTR on this was over 400% higher than the average, only beaten by ONE other message in over four years.
Why do you think this was?
I’ll tell you.
It’s the “no brainer” principle.
Establish valuable FREE content that sells… then tell people where they can get more.
They’ve already consumed the value… so you’ve got all the PROOF you need in the subject line because they’ve already EXPERIENCED it. (“Who wants more cookies and milk?” DUH!) (By the way, you can use this same proof principle to establish proof for your physical products by simply using a nice product demonstration on video)
They already associate me with solving DESPERATE PROBLEMS (figuring out how to get prospects to buy, and customers to buy more)
And it’s a unique offer… right there in that puny subject line… “ALL the cookies and milk you missed!”
Desperate problem, unique offer, and overwhelming proof.
Establish valuable free content that sells, then tell people where they can get more.
Of course “that sells” is the kicker.
Know how to do that?
I’ll spare you the usual rhetoric about having to know your market cold, etc.
Let’s assume you do.
How do you define the “free line?”
The best phrase to write on the inside of your eyelids is “Useful but Incomplete”
Like, for example, giving people your SECOND best click through generating email.
Or creating amazing cheat sheets, and sharing genuinely valuable methods and tips, but not putting the whole SYSTEM together step by step for everyone until they’re convinced and willing to pay you.
Useful but incomplete.
Someone send me a t-shirt with that on it please. Or a bumper sticker.
(I know… my wife is chuckling now saying that’s kind of how she thinks of ME… “Useful but Incomplete”… oh well!)
Here’s another one of my best (but not my absolute best) tips.
Almost NO ONE bothers TAGUCHI TESTING their email subject lines. But 90% of click through variance is all about the subject. And if you’re generating traffic from your subject lines, you could be generating twice as much with better subject lines!
Food for thought,
G 
PS – Have you see the new Guaranteed Video Traffic Service yet? We’ll be ceasing the case study discounts shortly (we’ve almost chosen our lot)
How To Split-Test Google Ads Using “Split Tester”
Beware: When you test, you need reliable numbers!
This means you need enough trials to be sure your results weren’t just luck. If you flip a coin four times and it comes up heads all four, it doesn’t mean there’s no tails. On your next flip there’s still the same 50% probability of getting either heads or tails.
A rule of thumb for testing is: You need at least 30 responses, under a consistent set of conditions, for your numbers to be accurate within 5%.
So if you’re split testing two pay-per-click ads on Google, one gets 5 clicks and the other 10, you really don’t know which one is better yet. It could just be luck. But when one gets 30 and the other 50, you’re pretty certain.
The same is true with direct mail, responses to a web page, e-mail, or whatever. At least 30 responses for each item you test.
COOL TIP: 30 is STILL just a rule of thumb. But I created this cool tool that tells you just how certain you are. You plug in the CTR’s and the number of clicks for two ads and this tool tells you:
Example:
Ad #1 – 25 clicks, 3.1% CTR Ad #2 – 17 clicks, 1.5% CTR
Click “submit” and the tool replies:
“You are approximately 95% confident that the ads will have different long term response rates.”
Testing used to be a lot harder than it is now. Read Scientific Advertising, written in 1918 by Claude Hopkins. He talks about taking months to run ads in newspapers, collect coupons from retail stores, and assess campaigns’ success.
Now you can send out a few thousand e-mails, split between multiple offers, and you know within a few hours which is better.
Testing used to be very expensive and take weeks or months. Now it’s cheap and it takes hours or days. There’s no reason why you can’t know anything you want to know with inexpensive testing! And no reason to spend millions of dollars developing an idea that nobody will buy. Sales people look at rejection as failure, but direct marketers see it as only a test. Which way do you want it?
Testing weeds out those bad ideas, and leads you to the good ones. The answers will always surprise you.
To Your Success,
Perry Marshall
