Subject Line Science: 11 “Made You Look” Secretes to Get Emails Opened and Read.
Seems like everyone’s been asking for this.
It’s a quick read, but it dives deep into my process for creating impossible-to-ignore subject lines.
When you devour the lessons in this book, you (or your marketing team) will have the tools to write must-open subject lines that win attention, make subscribers excited to read and open the door for big sales.
You’ll also get some of the AI prompts I’m playing around with to give you even more fresh subject line options.
One of the 11 “made you look” secrets revealed in the book is what I call the “Tootsie Roll center of persuasion.” Here’s an example:
You’ll get a whole lot more insight about this in the book.
Subject Line Science will be officially released on November 17.
But when you preorder the book now for just $9.99, you’ll also get access to 3 exclusive bonuses for free:
The audiobook (also on November 17)
104 Steal these Subject Lines templates
Big Ideas for Unforgettable Emails video training
If you take action, this information can transform your email marketing results AND your business as a whole.
There are 4 triggers that instantly turn someone into a buyer:
Trigger 1: His wife says/implies “Bring home X and you’ll get… something special.”
Or on the flip side, “Bring home Y or I’m going to cry.”
Trigger 2: He sees your offer as an easy way to step into the identity he craves or amplify the part of his current identity he’s intensely passionate about.
You can make your reader connect the dots between your offer and his identity on his own…
Or you can make it more obvious.
Not enough copywriters intentionally appeal to identity. Most are too busy thinking about features and benefits.
I encourage you to be one of the elite few that leverage its power.
Trigger 3: When your copy reframes his problem in such a way that he realizes he’s been looking at it all wrong… but now that he understands, the solution (your product/service) is obvious.
Trigger 4: The Stack. There’s a lot of focus on what’s known as a value stack. I’m a fan of the lesser-known desire stack. Both work.
In the following video clip, I discuss these 4 triggers with copywriting expert Maria Lloyd.
Maria has written six-figure email campaigns for more than two dozen brands (you’d definitely recognize more than a few of them), with an average boost to ROI of more than 400 percent.
To be more specific, the deadline is Friday, March 31 at 11:59PM Central.
When you sign up (for as little as $75 down), you’ll get access to a collection of deep-dive trainings to help you sharpen your copywriting sword and leverage those sales triggers we just talked about.
The, starting April 7, you’ll get 8 weeks of live, hands-on training with Maria and her team. She’ll work with you to help you learn the skills you need to write effective email copy AND you’ll actually be working as you go.
There’s no doubt in my mind this will be a life-changing training.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve partnered with Maria to help make Crash Course to Cash even more valuable. When you become part of this first cohort, you’ll also gain access to my Inbox X-Factor course.
Inbox X-Factor gives you 365 days’ worth of email ideas and inspiration… 100+ subject lines… and 10 video training modules revealing my personal strategies for writing emails with maximum selling power.
When I do make it available for sale again, I’m planning to charge between $200 and $300 for it. That’s a value stack for you.
You can’t buy Inbox X-Factor anywhere else right now, so if you’re interested in getting access, sign up here, plus get all the details about Crash Course to Cash.
I should’ve said it sooner: happy new year. Hope you’ve been able to kick off 2023 with gusto.
After guzzling all that sparkling grape juice, I realized I left out an important point in my previous email about my 3 predictions for the year.
The major distinction I need to add pertains to the first part of Prediction #3:
The value of real expertise will increase.
Here’s how I see this playing out in 2023…
There will be an avalanche of mostly mediocre AI-generated content published.
Quantity will likely increase every day, but quality will lag for a while. It’ll be at least 6 to 12 months before folks get over their giddiness and notice the diminishing returns.
That means two things:
1) High quality human-generated content will become rarer relative to speed-focused stuff spit out by AI… and
2) Human buyers (because bots have no money) will be increasingly impacted by marketing that feels authentically personal and/or delivers entertainment as part of the interaction.
Remember: TikTok gets more visitors than Google for a reason. Humans crave entertainment. They DEMAND it. That won’t change anytime soon.
AI is great at putting together information. It’s nowhere near ready for prime time when it comes to entertainment, especially in smaller niches.
Here’s the takeaway. Two things.
First, I encourage you to get familiar with AI tools. There’s some incredible stuff out there. I’m especially fond of HelloScribe for writing purposes.
But don’t let AI do all the work for you. I’ve had too many conversations with entrepreneurs who are overly optimistic about the copy-pasteability of AI output.
Don’t fall for it.
It’s true. You can get decent content/copy from AI. It will continue to get better over time.
But it’ll be a long time before it’s great. A long time before it’s authentically personal, especially in certain situations…
Secondly, the time of being Switzerland and playing it safe is over.
Work on adding personality and, yes, even entertainment into your content and copy.
Copywriting is no longer “salesmanship in print.” It’s SHOWMANSHIP in print.
I’ll be talking more about this in the coming days and weeks.
P.S. Even as artificial intelligence platforms improve their copy-pasteability, it’s still going to be a LONG time before they’re able to tap into the pure creativity of human copywriters.
Here’s a quick illustration using curiosity-drenched bullets:
AI can’t touch copy like this for multiple reasons.
Firstly, these bullets draw on context not included in the content itself. Particularly the one about the curse.
Secondly, AI still has a way to go into understanding why people use language the way we do. The bot is programmed to predict what word will follow the previous word, based on a bank of words it’s been trained on.
But it doesn’t understand what it’s saying, let alone why we say what we say or how to phrase copy/content for a particular emotional effect.
That’s why, for now, copywriters can still do what AI can’t do.
I’ve had more conversations than I can count with entrepreneurs and marketers who struggle to email their lists as often as they know they should.
Many of them really aren’t sure how to make money with email.
As a result of those conversations, I launched Inbox X-Factor earlier this week.
Inbox X-Factor is designed to
make it as easy as possible for you to send more emails to your list (and spend less time doing it), and…
showcase effective tactics and strategies that are working RIGHT NOW to help you make more money from each email.
In short, Inbox X-Factor gives you access to:
Live email clinics, where we’ll write an email from scratch on video. Watching the process can help you find your own rhythm and gain confidence
Timely email ideas and inspiration, so you never run out of reasons to email your list
Unique subject line templates and examples
In-depth training to help you unlock the money-making power of email. Studies show email produces 40X ROI. These lessons will help you get there.
For THIS WEEK ONLY, you can become one of first members of Inbox X-Factor for $47/month.
On Friday night (July 10), the price goes up to $97/month.
If you have a list and an offer (or clients who have them)…I believe Inbox X-Factor can help you making MORE money with email in LESS time — starting as soon as today. If you’re interested, click the link in the first comment.
>>> Click hereto lock the discounted price of $47/month for Inbox X-Factor.
For me, Lamar Tyler is one of my top answers to the question “If you could spend an hour with one person/celebrity, who would it be?” I have a TON of respect and admiration for Lamar’s business acumen, leadership and brilliance. Plus, he’s one of the coolest guys you’d ever want to meet.
Last weekend, I got my hour with The Man.
Lamar hosted the inaugural Traffic, Sales and Profit Lunch and Learn series on Blab, and I had the honor of being his guest. We discussed a lot of topics close to my heart, like:
What is a unique selling proposition (USP)?
How do I make people want what I sell?
The differences in writing emails, landing pages, general web copy, etc.
The most painful mistakes people make when writing copy
When it’s time to hire a professional copywriter
“Why can’t I find a good copywriter?”
and plenty more.
I also revealed the most powerful characteristics of email copywriting — and why some people should NOT hire a copywriter to write their emails for them. (I’ve told potential clients on multiple occasions I couldn’t do better than what they’re doing.)
Check it out: The Science of Copy Lunch & Learn
An Important Point I Didn’t Get to Make in the Interview
I realized after the Blab that I forgot an significant point when we talked about why it’s sometimes difficult to find a good copywriter. If you’re expecting a stranger to instantly create a miraculous transformation of your business, you might be expecting too much.
Your copywriter isn’t (necessarily) weak just because he can’t make your boring offer exciting…or make a dead mailing list suddenly spring to life.
I’ve often quipped that I do work miracles, just not on demand. (Yes, I’ve said it to potential clients.) Even copy that seems brilliant doesn’t work 100% of the time. Believe me, I know from embarrassing experience. All of the pros have. For optimal results, you have to make the right offer to the right audience at the right time.
On the other hand, a great offer or a hot list can make even a pedestrian copywriter look like a superstar…
I recently had the good fortune to appear on Jason Wellington Strachan’s new show, the Daily Profit Podcast.
Jason, also known as the Copywriting Prince, reached out to me to talk about “the Donnie Bryant Method” for creating/discovering big ideas for your copy projects. According to me (and pretty much any other big name copywriter you can think of), the Big Idea is the most important part of any marketing message.
For example, here’s what David Ogilvy has to say on the subject:
“You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
More than “power words,” magic persuasive templates or fancy graphics, your marketing needs to be built on the foundation of a compelling big idea.
I hate to spoil the interview — which you can listen to on the below — but there’s no real “method” to big idea hunt.
What I do is…
read a lot, every day
research like I’m working on a Ph.D. dissertation
and try to form unique connections that will hit home for a particular audience.
By my most recent calculations, I spend about 6 hours a day reading. (Most days, I spend about 2-3 hours writing.)
Books, competitive intelligence, product knowledge stuff, news, copywriting and marketing stuff, etc.
Why? Because I very rarely come up with good ideas – I find them.
That’s true of every great copywriter, by the way.
Reading and researching is how I make sure my brain has the raw material to make those big idea connections. To quote Ogilvy again:
“Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process.”
Even though I’ve let the cat out of the proverbial bag regarding the podcast, there’s still some valuable content in there. Give it a listen today.
I also have recorded a quick overview of my research method as part of an expert roundup on effective copywriting. Check it out below.
How do you break through the hullabaloo that your “should-be” customers are immersed in and get YOUR message across?
Well, it starts with attention. “Have I got your attention? Good.” **Queue scene from Glengarry Glen Ross**
I got the chance to spill some of what I’ve learned about getting attention online, in print and in person on The Small Business Marketing Report podcast (now called the Click and Convert Podcast) with Robert Tyson.
In 56 minutes, we discussed:
How to use hidden dangers and unexpected consequences to draw people to your message like moths to a flame
Why certain kinds of statistics get shared on social media
Why picking a fight is often great for business (and how to benefit even if you don’t do the fight-picking)
How to use personality… and how much personality is too much?
How to use secrets and codes for almost guaranteed attention
Honestly, I’ve been fiending to be a guest on The Small Business Marketing Report podcast for quite some time, and I’m a big fan of Robert and his co-host Sean Clark, so I’m excited about this.
I’m still cleaning up the mess after having my mind blown at Content Jam last month. But it’s a good mess.
Besides expanding my thinking and learning some new tricks and strategies, I’ve already taken some action to step up my content marketing game. A couple of my clients have benefited from the tips I picked up, too.
Plus, I met some super-cool people. (That’s what happens when you come out of the cave and meet with other smart, creative people in real life.)
If you couldn’t make it to Chicago, you missed out BIG TIME.
Never fear! After the conference, I reached out to each of the rockstar speakers and asked them to boil down their presentations into bite-sized takeaways for anyone who couldn’t make it.
Here’s what they shared with me:
If you had 60 seconds or less, what’s the #1 takeaway from your presentation you’d share with anyone who couldn’t make it to Content Jam?
Tim Ash, about “Context and the Power of Framing – Biasing Your Offer with Irrational Neuromarketing”
The brain is the real ‘operating system’ for marketing. Understanding the evolution of it, as well as the strong and often irrational built-in biases will help online marketers a lot more than focusing on the latest technologies.
Note: All the “graphic recordings” in this post were created by Alphachimp.
You can see Tim’s full presentation onOrbit Media Studio’s YouTube channel here. As a bonus, I heckled Tim from the audience right around the 10:00 mark. To get the context, start paying attention at 9:22. Yep, that interruption is me.
Tim handled it like a pro. Threats of physical violence were made, but we were able to reconcile after the session.
Angie Schottmuller on “Holy Grail of On-Page Content Optimization”
“You can’t optimize what you don’t measure.” Jumping into content updates without data-driven insights is time consuming and foolish. The “holy grail” event tracking approach replaces guesswork with strategic wisdom for content optimization that confidently drives measurable results.
Nancy Goldstein, about her presentation “The Creative Brief: The Secret Ingredient That Will Make All Your Content More Powerful and Effective”
Creative briefs are critical. You have to make absolutely sure that everyone who has accountability for content – strategy, implementation, or approvals – is in agreement about how the execution is going to deliver on the strategy. The only way to do that is to get it on paper and have a conversation about it. If you skip this step, you risk going through round after round after round of creative approvals, debates, and frustrations.
Amy Schmittauer on “How to Develop and Execute an Effective YouTube Strategy”
Do not waste any time. When your perfect viewer stumbles upon your content because they wanted to discover more about a topic you’re covering, the worst thing you can do it make them wait for you to get to the point. The more time at the beginning of a video with extra stuff YOU think is is important are precious moments wasted that you could be proving to your viewer that you are the resource they need to stay subscribed to for the long-term.
Mana Ionescu speaking about her “Guide to Results-Driven Email Marketing and Automation”
Stop worrying about making emails pretty and start thinking of how to make them quick to read and easy to click on mobile devices. Shorten paragraphs (have an average of one link per 8-12 words), increase font size and increase size of links and calls to action so it’s easy to tap them with your fingertip.
Jeannie Walters on how to “Become Your Company’s Customer Experience Investigator™”
Understand your customer’s entire journey to improve how your content is relevant to them. Think about your customer on his or her worst day, struggling with whatever product or service you offer, and understand your brand is not what they think about 24/7. Make sure your content strategy supports their true goals. It’s not just about who they are, it’s about where they are in their journey with your brand.
Andy Crestodina, speaking about “Fortune and Glory: How to Make Friends, Rank High and Get Famous”
Social media isn’t just about sharing links and hoping for clicks. It’s not about counting likes and favorites. These things are nice, but they don’t help your marketing very much at all. Maybe you’ve noticed.
Yes, social media CAN drive traffic, but the quality of that traffic tends to be low. So the DIRECT benefits of social media are often very small.
So try this: focus on the INDIRECT benefits of social media. If you use it to build relationships, the value of those relationships are often huge.
Use social media search tools to find very specific content creators in your niche
Follow them, read what they write, get to know them
Interact with them within their content, in comments and through sharing
Connect with them on multiple social networks, keep interacting
Offer to COLLABORATE with them, pulling their voice into your content
Take the conversation offline, coffee, phone calls, handwritten thank you notes, etc.
What happens next is often magical. If you great something high value and email it to them, or if you create something together that is truly original, they’re extremely likely to share it, or better yet, mention it (and link to it) from something they’re writing.
When this happens, you just got a search optimization benefit from social media. And it’s durable, increasing the likelihood that you’re content will rank forever after.
The recording of Andy’s keynote presentation can be found here. Side note: Andy’s presentation is what inspired me to write this post. Thanks Andy!
Jill Pollack, on “Feeding the Beast: How to Keep Your Content Flowing, on Point and Endlessly Entertaining”
Focus on the details when telling a story.
There’s nothing worse than having to listen to generalities and jargon about the state of Internet marketing across the global platform and the influx of impactful and non-impactful content that reaches multiple demographics including those in the 24-35 age range when searches are conducted with an unmet expected outcome.
BOO!
How about saying: “There’s nothing worse than searching for history of Thanksgiving and winding up with ads and fake listicles about pilgrims and Black Friday sales.”
(Also, “impactful” is not really a word!)
Susan Silver, from her presentation “Great Content Starts Here: Positioning is More Than a Statement”
Before you write a single word of content, you need to take the time to stop and think hard about your company or product’s very specific value proposition. You need to be able to succinctly and clearly answer five questions in layman’s terms:
1. Who is your primary target
2. What is the unmet need your target has that you fill
3. What is your competitive set
4. What is your unique point of difference
5. What are three real, no BS reasons that your point of difference is believable
Make sure to check out Susan’s presentation slides on Slideshare here.
Keidra Chaney’s advice on “How to Start (and maintain!) a Blog That Doesn’t Stink”
Be thoughtful and intentional when it comes to thinking about your blog. Think more about providing meaningful conversation, cutting through the clutter of content that’s already out there, by providing a perspective that you can give.
James Ellis speaking about his “13 Non-Obvious Content Promotion Tricks”
Content that you promote is wasted content, so you need to build systems that force you to promote your content. They don’t have to cost you a thing, but if you treat promotion as a “oh yeah, I guess I have to” add-on to content instead of an integral process, no one will ever hear your message.
Joel Harvey doing his best to encapsulate “Mobile Optimization Essentials: Tips for Increasing Mobile Conversion Rates” in 60 seconds
“You should never just make changes to your site without testing them. If you can’t or won’t A/B test the changes, at least make sure you have a rigorous, data-centric methodology for doing a pre-post analysis to assess the impact of any changes you make. Beyond that, I would encourage everyone to think deeply about what kind of goals they should optimize their mobile site for. What are the questions that people at the top of the decision making funnel will be asking? Identify those questions and make sure your mobile site answers them quickly and clearly.”
My Content Jam Regrets
I wish I had taken more pictures!
It would have been great to have a clone so I could have attended all the breakout sessions. Choosing whose presentation to attend and whose to miss was BRUTAL. (Thank God for these 60-second recaps!)
Not writing this round-up article sooner.
Not being more purposeful in connecting with the other brilliant attendees.
Content Jam 2015 was incredible.
I took 17 pages of notes, filled with great ideas and insights that will benefit my business in a major way. If you didn’t make it, I hope this post gives you a little taste of what you missed.
I also hope you’ll start following the speakers who’s advice you read above. Each of them will help you sharpen your content marketing “axe” to make you more effective at your craft.
People sometimes ask me how I became an expert at copywriting. My answer is always the same; I smirk a little and say “I decided to become one.”
Naturally, the story is more involved than that, but that decision — followed by commitment — is the crux of the it.
I had the opportunity to explore this decision and how it impacted my life on Episode 7 of Jason Leister’s Incomparable Expert Podcast. This was a special treat for me because of the massive respect and admiration I have for Jason. (If there’s was an incomparable individual on the call, Jason was him.)
The conversation was very raw. Jason didn’t tell me what he was going to ask, and I’m not sure he stuck to any kind of prearranged series of questions or topics, either.
So we were all over the map, talking about
the fact that your ideal customers probably have characteristics similar to the average serial killer – and what it’s going to take to attract and keep them
what “providing value” really means
Jason’s patent-pending “village model of evolution” and why doing business in the vast expanse of the internet is reverting, in some ways, to the old neighborhood structure
when content creation is just plain stupid
just how elastic price is — and how to start banishing the notion that you have to work harder to be worthy of making more money from your mind
One of the big takeaways is the magical power of “showing up.” I realize that one of the main reasons I reached any level of success is because I decided to keep going. Even if you’re not very talented, there’s a good chance you’ll find your status elevated simply because you consistently came to work.
Jason said it well: “Anybody with a heartbeat COULD be consistent. But it’s rare, it’s as rare as gold.”
