You never hear people talking about this, but it’s an important concept to wrap our minds around if you want to maximize your email marketing revenue.
Here it is: when discussing subject lines, most people only talk about getting opens. But subject lines have don’t just have one job.
In fact, subject lines have 3 jobs.
But before the recipient can open an email, it has to get noticed. To catch the scanning eye mid-scroll. That’s Job #1.
Job #2 is to entice opens. A subscriber will only open an email if he believes he’ll be rewarded for doing so. So a subject line must communicate that there’s value inside (and value comes in countless forms).
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone teaching about Job #3, which is this:
A good subject line should appeal to people in the right mental and emotional state to open, read with enthusiasm and take action – or put readers in that state.
In other words, the subject line FRAMES everything else that follows.
If you’ve been testing different kinds of subject lines and paying attention to the metrics, you may have noticed that the subject line with the higher open rate sometimes has a lower clickthrough rate.
Why?
Because different subject lines may attract different people, and people in different moods at the time. And they can affect your mood when you see them and decide to check out the email.
The unique combinations of curiosity, desire and emotion in the subject line can have a big impact on clickthrough rate.
Here’s where it gets wonky.
You’d think that the clickers (a majority of them, at least) would all be in pretty much the same mental space.
They’ve read the same body copy inside the email and based their decision to click on that.
Meaning the conversion rate on the page linked to should be relatively consistent between both subject lines.
But when you track the metrics, you see that’s often not the case.
I’ve seen the click-to-conversion rate (i.e. the percentage of people who buy divided by the total number of people who clicked the link in the email) on an order form differ by as much as 200% between test versions.
This is real data from a recent A/B split test:
Same send time. Same email body copy. Same sales page. Same order form. The only difference was the subject line.
The A version has a specific, big promise in the subject line – and it highlights a specific opportunity the subscriber believes could be very profitable. Those who open are curious about specific stocks.
The answer is not in the body copy or on the sales page. You’d have to buy the product to find out.
The B version is ambiguous. There’s a fast-approaching deadline… but that’s all we know from the subject line. Those who open want to know what they’re about to miss out on.
Again, the email body copy and sales page are identical for both emails. Both highlight the specific opportunity and the urgent deadline.
But the more urgent ambiguous subject line made twice as much money with fewer opens and a whole lot fewer clicks.
The tricky part is that you don’t always know which factor will prevail.
What does this mean in practical terms?
First, simply knowing that subject lines impact the deeper metrics, all the way through conversion on an order form, will help you get more value from your testing.
Second, think about what mental and emotional state is optimal for converting your readers.
Then test! Pay attention to what your list responds to. Not just what emails they open… but what kind of appeals lead to conversions.
You’ll get to know your subscribers in a more profound way than you may have thought possible.
Everyone knows subject lines are important. In my experience, most people don’t realize just how important they are or WHY.
Having read this far, you know something a most marketers don’t fully appreciate.
And there’s so much more to discover!
In Subject Line Science, I share many of my deepest insights I’ve learned about enticing people to open, read and buy from marketing emails.
You’ll also get dozens of templates, “made you look” power words and more.