It drove Izzy crazy, and he had no clue what to do about it. Day after day, email after email, Izzy sent messages that were honest, professional and ineffective. His subject lines told the truth in short comfortable requests for the recipient to please read the message. In short, Izzy felt like all his email correspondence was going into black hole where no one read them or responded to them. He knew that getting some traction with his new line of beverages would be a challenge, but this was downright agony. Was everyone in the world so cold and callous that they just did not bother to send a reply, even if it was thanks, no thanks?
Every single day almost everyone with an email address gets buried in unsolicited and unwelcome emails from who knows where. It is so bad that we have all just decided that hitting DELETE is better than finding out we flushed something of value. Izzy was raised to be polite, and not push things at people, so his emails were effectively exactly like all the emails getting wiped out without a moment’s care or attention. In trying to play nice, Izzy was effectively getting nowhere.
Because of the email avalanche we all run from daily, subject lines must be provocative or at least out of the ordinary. Asking for a minute of someone’s time will not get it done in today’s electronic environment. Izzy needs to go out of bounds a bit and make his target stop and react to that all important subject line. Writing something that his target has not seen before is the key to making the subject line work effectively, no more typical “I have an offer for you.” Take some chances and let your imagination go a bit wild. Use that subject line to challenge, intrigue or surprise your targets and let them possibly react to your boldness. Business development is won by those that are not afraid of hitting a nerve or upsetting someone. Subject lines are the perfect place to ask for permission instead of waiting for permission to be different and fearless in your approach.
What is the bravest subject line you have ever used?
What is the most off the wall one you have ever received?
Are you willing to give this a try?
Final Thought for the Morning:
23 Funny Email Subject Lines Begging to Be Opened (hubspot.com)
LAST WEEK: Update us on how things went last week with your stated Goals and GD Tactics.
THIS WEEK: Please share your Top 3 Goals for this week and the GD tactics you plan to deploy.