What makes a stellar subject line?
Come along with me as I take you through one
of my favorite copywriting exercises of all time.
I am about to share my unfiltered critiques
of six subject lines.
What made them great?
What left me wanting more?
And what would make them even more powerful?
Keep watching.
(upbeat joyful music)
Hey, Posse, what's up?
It's Alex.
Last week I posted a video
about five simple copywriting exercises
that you can do every single day
to help you master the art of copywriting.
One of those exercises was to find headlines online
and then use your mad copywriter ninja skills
to make them even better.
So for this tutorial, I'm gonna go a little bit deeper
into that one exercise,
by showing you my critiques of six subject lines
from six different people, all for the same email.
So let's get started.
Now, if you are following me on Instagram @copyposse,
then you've probably seen my regular Make It Hotter posts,
where I find an ad, a headline or a subject line
and then I put it out to the community,
you guys, the Posse, to, yes, you guessed it,
Make It Hotter.
So my community absolutely loves this series,
I love reading your comments.
Not only is it a great way to practice,
but it's a great way to see how other copywriters think
and it really helps you better understand
why certain things work and why certain things just don't.
And the best part of this exercise for me is
when I get to put on my posse prop spectacles
and critique the top-voted submissions.
So in today's video, I'm gonna take you through one
of my latest additions of Make It Hotter on subject lines
and break down my critiques point by point.
By the way,
if you wanna see more in-depth critiques like this one,
then give me a thumbs up below
and of course hit
that subscribe button below (button pops)
and tap that bell to be notified
when my next video goes live. (cash register rings)
All right, now, first, let's take a look at this post
where I asked the Posse to make this subject line
even hotter.
So this was an email from Foundr and the subject line was,
"Why 2021 is the perfect storm for e-commerce."
And the meta or the preview text was,
"Here's my prediction,
2021 is about to be the biggest year
online store owners have ever seen."
Well with over 200 submissions,
the Posse really showed up for this one.
But before I get to my personal critiques
of those top submissions,
let's first critique Foundr's original copy.
What works, what was lacking and what could be better?
Now, the first thing I noticed is that both the subject line
and the meta are a little bit long.
With more and more users viewing emails on mobile devices,
the amount of visible real estate for subject lines
really needs to be considered.
Of course, it varies from device to device,
how many characters are shown in the subject line,
but the rule of thumb
that I like to stick to is around 30 characters
and then 50 characters or less for the preview text.
This ensures your copy is being seen in its entirety
for the majority of devices and users.
Remember, when it comes to the inbox, less is often more.
Now, if you're wondering,
"Alex, what the heck is a meta or a preview text?"
Here it is, it's that little email preview that you see
with certain email providers like Gmail and Outlook.
It's essentially a little teaser
that gives you more info about what the email is about,
and is another opportunity for you to pique curiosity
and entice the reader to click because you can customize it.
So you can see some preview text here,
make 2021 your best year ever, in this email from Ad World.
Now, albeit short, the subject line and preview text are two
of the most important parts of your email, right?
'Cause this is what determines
whether people will actually open your email,
mark you as spam or send you straight into the trash.
So to craft hot subject lines,
you wanna either create urgency, evoke curiosity,
be controversial, get personal,
or simply tell them what's inside.
So Foundr did a really good job at evoking curiosity here
with why 2021 is the perfect storm for e-commerce,
but they might wanna strengthen the subject line
by eliminating a few unnecessary words
and maybe adding personalization, right?
The meta description is also a bit long.
"Here's my prediction, 2021 is about to be the biggest year
online store owners have ever seen."
It's long, right?
So with that,
let's take a look at the Posse subject line submissions
along with my critiques.
These six subject lines were selected
because they received the most amounts of likes
or votes from the community.
And first up we have my girl LeAnn.
She is a grad of Launch Pad season one,
and she's also a Reignmaker,
a member of my high-level coaching program.
So we already know she killed it,
but let's pull up her subject line
and take a look at my note.
All right, so you can see LeAnn's subject line is,
" see why eCommerce is dominating this year."
And the preview text is, "It's not too late to join."
So first of all, I absolutely love the personalization.
We know that personalization improves email open rates,
even though everybody knows that that merge field is all
just like tech wizardry
that happens behind the scenes, right?
Personalization works.
So awesome idea by LeAnn for this subject line.
I also love her open loop with, "See why," right?
It's hinting that there is a reason
and if you open the email, you will find out.
Excellent, excellent open loop.
Now, I love that she said, "This year,"
"is dominating this year," as opposed to 2021,
because it's a great way
to make this email 100% evergreen, right?
If they wanted to send this automated as an autoresponder,
they could use an email that says this year,
as opposed to the year.
Because, hey, 2021 is almost over, right?
Now, I love the way she also formatted this subject line,
I can tell that she's been
through my email marketing training.
I love that she made it very, very clear for me
as the reader to see
or the copywriter or the business owner,
or whoever will be looking at this
to see that this is the subject line up at the top
and then of course, the preview text is down below.
And lastly, her preview text is nice and short and sweet.
She said, "It's not too late to join,"
really nice urgency at play.
It's not scarcity because she's not saying,
"Join now before it's too late."
But she's saying, "It's not too late to join."
And using those words, too late,
is a really, really powerful way to evoke that urgency
and get more clicks.
So overall, five stars, you did awesome, LeAnn, great job.
All right, so now we have five more submissions
to go through so let's pull up the next one here.
By joolieboolie! Joolieboolie17.
So her subject line is,
"10 years of e-commerce growth in just 90 days?"
Question mark, exclamation mark.
"The 2021 boom is on fire," with three fire emojis.
So overall, I love her hook,
it's a really good sort-of-FYI hook.
She's basically telling you,
"Hey, there has been 10 years worth of growth
in just 90 days."
That's interesting, I wanna know more, right?
Great hook.
Overall, it's a bit long,
and it could be that she was intending
to have the subject line be the first sentence
and then the preview text the second,
but because she didn't specify that, I wasn't sure.
So she could've improved this a bit by just saying,
"Hey, this is the subject and this is the preview."
Now, great specificity as well.
So specificity in terms of using numbers is a great way
to create an open loop
because it catches the attention of your eye in the inbox.
If you're seeing words, words, words, words, words,
and then you see numbers,
it really does pull your eye in
and then people wanna know more.
So overall, her use of numbers,
great use of specificity, love a good emoji.
I mean, you guys know my thoughts on emojis,
I think they're fun.
Again, they catch your attention in the inbox when you see
that bright, yellowy orange emoji, right?
You don't wanna overdo it,
you don't want every single email you send
to be like jam-packed with emojis,
but when used tastefully
they can really power up your subject lines
and preview text.
The other thing I might suggest is
because the first line is quite long for a subject line,
maybe just swapping the two.
So maybe making the subject line,
"The 2021 boom is on fire"
and then make the preview text,
"10 years of eCommerce growth in 90 days."
I crossed out the word, just,
just because it's probably not necessary
and might make your subject line or preview text
just that much longer
that it could be cut off on mobile devices.
Great job, joolieboolie17.
All right, moving on to the next one, I love this, you guys,
I freaking love this.
Okay, so hannpena.
I'm sorry I don't know your actual names.
I'm gonna say, I'm just gonna guess
that maybe your name is Hannah.
It's hard to tell with just Instagram handles,
so I apologize.
Hannah says, "Why eCommerce in 2021 is going to explode
to apocalyptic levels."
First of all, that word, apocalyptic, whoo!
I love it, piques my curiosity, excellent.
Excellent.
What, the world is ending?
The eCommerce world is ending?
What's happening?
Also love the open loop that's created with the word, why?
Going back to LeAnn's example of "See why,"
she could've done that here as well,
but why works in this context.
Great way to open a loop and get people thinking,
"I don't know why, I must find out.
I'm gonna click."
I like that she uses the word eCommerce,
it makes it really relevant to the target audience.
Of course, if you remove that word, it would be weird,
why 2021 is going to explode. (groan)
Not the vibe you want.
So a really, really relevant keyword
in the subject line there.
Overall, tiny bit long.
Again, this is the hardest thing, you guys,
writing short, punchy subject lines
and preview texts and headlines for that matter,
is probably one of the hardest things to do in copywriting.
It's not easy.
So sometimes you gotta write it and then rewrite it
and so that's what I did here just as a possibility.
I don't know if it would be better of course,
this is just a guess.
But you can see here, I thought subject line could be,
"2021 eCommerce apocalypse?"
Question mark.
And then the preview would be,
"Why online sales are about to explode."
So I kind of like tied in a bit of a benefit
in that preview text as well,
which again, you can take or leave,
but it could be a way to shorten it
and still make it punchy using your core ideas.
So, excellent, excellent job.
Okay, now, moving on to the next one,
we have Elizabeth here
and her subject line is, "3 reasons why you should start
your eComm business in 2021.
Spoiler, it's going to be epic."
With a "okay" emoji.
So first of all, love the specificity again,
great way to open a loop is by providing numbers
and a framework.
Three reasons, not one, three.
Oh my God, I must know.
What are the three reasons?
Which is great.
It's a bit long, so I might ask like,
how can you shorten this?
And my idea was maybe,
three reasons this is the biz you need in 2021.
Obviously, it does change the nature
of the eCommerce specificity a little bit,
but you could bring that into the preview text
or keep it a little bit more broad,
pique curiosity and explain it more in the email itself.
I'm also, again, assuming that the second part
of this sentence is the preview text,
but because you didn't specify, Elizabeth,
I'm not sure, so I'm just gonna guess.
I love the word, spoiler.
Spoiler alert, it's fun.
So "Spoiler, it's going to be epic."
Again, love the open loop.
So one way that you could tweak that is
you could make the subject line like,
"3 reasons this is the biz you need in 2021"
and then it could say, "Spoiler: eComm is going to be epic."
Or something like that,
so you're still bringing in the specificity
that you're referring specifically
to eCommerce based businesses.
Okay, moving on to the next one,
we have a subject line here from riddhipanchal_marketing.
The subject line here is, "2021 will be record-breaking year
for your e-commerce store."
Little grammar thing there,
it should say, will be a record-breaking year,
but overall, record-breaking, love that idea,
love the concept, love the hook, overall.
I also love that you're speaking to the reader,
you're saying the word your.
Your store, your store as an eCommerce business owner.
Really, really powerful, but overall it's very long,
so I would ask you to workshop it a bit
and figure out how can you shorten it
and better utilize the preview text?
Because you have, "How?
Read inside," as the preview text,
which is a little bit redundant.
As a subject line and preview text,
your only goal is to get them to open the email.
So by piquing their curiosity, to get them to click,
you don't have to say, "How?
Read inside."
So you could say something like,
"2021 will break all the records.
Find out what this means for your eCommerce store."
Or something like that.
So you're still using that hook,
you're still calling out the audience,
but you're better utilizing that real estate, all right?
Overall, awesome, awesome job.
All right, now last one,
we have a subject line here from Brittany and it reads,
"How a pandemic = massive win for eCommerce,"
with like a little, (gasps) surprise emoji.
Very, very strong here,
I love the irony hook at play,
like how to play off the fact
that this pandemic will be a massive win.
People go, "Wait, what?
How is that possible?"
It's a really great irony hook at play.
Also love the use of symbols
and emojis for grabbing attention.
Remember, if you only have 30 characters to grab attention,
how can you use symbols, an equal sign, a plus sign,
and an ampersand to shorten subject lines
so that they fit on mobile?
So overall, really great job there, very, very strong.
I say here, which I just shared with you
obviously earlier in this video,
that mobile devices show 25 to 30 characters.
So be a bit careful there, this one's 47.
So ask yourself, "How can you make it shorter?"
I think one way to really do it is
just to remove, how a,
and just have the subject line be,
"Pandemic = massive win for eCommerce?" Question mark.
Also, there's no preview text, so I mean,
with that strong of a subject line,
would love to see some optimized preview text added there.
Woo!
Everyone did such a great job on this exercise.
Really, you guys absolutely killed it.
So if you wanna play along
with the next edition of Make It Hotter,
go ahead and follow me on Instagram @copyposse
and if you guys liked this video
and you'd like to see me do more
in-depth critiques like this,
make sure to let me know in the comments below,
I always love to hear from you.
And if you wanna grab a copy
of my Free Ultimate Email Marketing Cheatsheet,
to help you master the ABCs of inbox influence,
you can grab that as a free gift at the end of this video
in just a few seconds.
Thanks for watching, until next time, I'm Alex.
Ciao for now.
(upbeat joyful music)
All right guys, if you enjoyed that video,
make sure to check out the next one from me right here.
And you can click right here to get a free gift.
One of the biggest mistakes a copywriter can make
is using the exact same hook and headline
for every single audience.
Think about it, the way you capture the attention
of a random scroller-by on Facebook is very different
from how you'd capture the attention
of your most loyal subscribers.
So today I'm talking about
how to write headlines the right way based
on the five levels of customer awareness.