Sell Like Crazy

They are bored!
Don’t add to this by writing limp, boring and dull emails that put your
readers to sleep.
Be that person in their life who brings them some spice, some entertainment
and excitement to their dull vanilla lives. Do not be boring.
Make it so every time your readers see your name pop up in their inbox,
they get a tiny little hit of dopamine in their brain that makes them want to
read your emails.
Do this and they will be hanging out for your next email, looking forward to
receiving it; and when they do see your name appear in their inbox, they’ll
almost stumble over themselves in a rush to see what you have to say… and
to get a hit of that dopamine.
This becomes a positive anchor towards you, your name, and your business.
Once you’ve cured email blindness, here’s what happens:

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Your open rates will sky-rocket. When you ask them to click a link, they
click a link. Your readers will follow you religiously on whatever adventure
you choose to take them on. (But it better be entertaining!)
If you master this, like really master this, you will create an email selling
machine that drags in not thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions or
even tens of millions of dollars; but rather, email copy that has the potential
of increasing sales for you (or your clients) that can add up to hundreds of
millions of dollars.
But this doesn’t happen by accident. It takes effort, and most people have
no idea how to secure this kind of relationship and friend-like bond.
The takeaway being, nothing will increase the amount of sales your emails
bring in more than writing exciting and entertaining copy that spices up the
dull life of your readers.
We’ll cover more of how exactly to do just that later.
How to Almost Force People to Open Your Emails with Your Subject
Lines
It’s no secret that one of the primary drivers of email open rates is your
subject line. Other than the sender name, it’s the element of an email that
usually stands out the most in your reader’s inbox.
We’ve battled hard to ensure maximum inbox deliverability with our sender
scores and reputation, and now is the time to practically force our readers to
open up our email once it’s arrived.
There’s lots of advice out there to help you write better subject lines. And
most of this advice has a lot in common. It’s mostly about subject line
‘hacks’ and formulas, i.e., ‘Use emojis in your subject lines, or use this
magic email subject line formula, blah, blah, blah…’
Instead of these ‘hacks’, I like to focus on the strategy more than the tactics.
And my primary objective with anything to do with email is to do
everything in my power to ensure my emails end up in the ‘P’ group. And

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therefore, the prime objective when writing subject lines is that they appear
to be personal.
Stop reading right now and take a look at your inbox. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
What did you see?
Let me guess…. You saw all, or most of, the following:
Emails from your friends / family.
Emails from colleagues.
Alerts and updates from social media sites, e.g., ‘Dave wants to join
your network’.
Emails from your manager or senior executive.
Emails from businesses and blogs.
Bills and electronic statements.
Software and tool notifications and update.
Some emails require an action. Others don’t.
Some emails have to be stored for your records, while others don’t.
Some of those emails you dread having to deal with. Others are easy.
But all of these categories of emails fall into two distinct groups. You
guessed it, the good ol’ ‘P’ and ‘C’ groups.
And you can bet your bottom dollar the ones assured to get opened and
actioned are the emails that appear to be personal.
Therefore: Your email subject line’s primary objective is to sound as much
like their trusted friend, family member, or colleague as you can… without
being tricky or gimmicky or lame.
The more you sound like a friend, the less you’ll scream, ‘I belong in the
“C” group! Delete me!’
Here are the subject lines of a few personal and work-related emails in my

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inbox:
crazy check this out
can I chat to you about this in morning?
let’s buy this for Melia
Friday’s playgroup
Bali accommodation options
approval needed
What do those subject lines all have in common?
They:
Use lower-case or sentence case – not Title Case or, even worse,
ALL CAPS.
Lack almost all punctuation.
Keep it to four or five words, max.
Ask questions.
Tell you enough to want to open them, but not the whole story.
When crafting your email subject lines, you need be doing all of the above,
in order to make your subject lines look personal and in the ‘P’ group.
If you sit down to write your email and find yourself struggling to come up
with something, a great place to look for a bit of inspiration is at Native
Advertising. You can see examples of Native ads at www.aol.com. Once
you get there, scroll down the page a little until you see this:

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Notice the ‘AdChoices’ link on the top right and bottom left. These are
native ads served up by an ad network called Taboola. These headlines can
be a good source of inspiration.
Intrigue is a proven winner to draw in readers. But when using this style of
clickbait-y subject lines, you have to close the loop in the email. The
subject line creates burning intrigue and curiosity and the email needs to
satisfy it. This shows your readers that you can deliver , and that you’re not
simply tricking them to open your emails; this makes them more likely to
take action and keep opening up your emails in the future.
If you still can’t come up with anything, then there are templates and
formulas. However, as a general rule I’m not a fan because everyone uses
them and they can come across as generic if you’re not careful.

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I mean how many times have you seen ‘7 secrets to losing weight’ or ‘10
ways to make more money’?
Subject lines like this work a few times, but after a while, seeing the same
old recycled subject line formulas just gets old. It trains your readers not to
engage with them and causes email blindness.
That’s why I personally try to avoid formulaic subject lines.
But let’s get real. Sometimes you need a template or formula to fall back on
when your creative juices aren’t flowing. They can help you get unstuck or
help you get you started with some fresh ideas.
So, as a last resort you can swipe and deploy this list of email subject line
formulas or use them to get your creative juices flowing:
how to make {subject} that will {benefit}
21+ ways to grow your {subject}
do you think you can {benefit}?
The only way to achieve {desirable thing} without doing
{undesirable thing}
5 reasons why you should {subject}
{benefit} while you sleep
[template] 10 best {subject}
how {name/company} does {subject}
{name/company} can afford any {subject}, he uses {solution}
how {name/company} got {number/desirable outcome} in {number
of days}
real {audience} use {solution}
discover the {solution}
{subject}, {subject}, and {unrelated subject}?
stop {undesirable current state} now

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copy and paste these {subject} [last chance]
discover the {solution} that will change your life today