How a 📩subject line “lie” quadrupled conversions

Happy Humpday, Inbox Hackers. Today’s Feature Story gives you 4 quick tips that’ll make your writing more effective. If you do any email marketing, tip #1 is especially worth the read. After that, feast on the following sections. 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (under-used brain break)

• Facts & Stats (mobile’s monstrous)

• Get Hacking (hurts me to say) 

Now, let’s hop on today’s Feature Story…

Feature Story

4 Writing Tips to Keep Readers from Swiping Away

There are 6 total tips I heard on a podcast on the way home from a short trip. Listen or get the bullet points here.

The 4 I’ll cover are the most relevant.

I’ll go ahead and give you the best insight right off the bat.

#1 “Lie” in Your Email Subject Line

The next three tips are worth your time. This one, though, is epic if you’re interested in quadrupling your email campaigns’ conversion rate.

And it goes against common email marketing advice, which says to ensure your subject line isn’t clickbait. The body of the email should always pay off the subject line’s promise.

Solid advice, but it can prevent you from making the subject line way more enticing to the reader. 

Here’s the deal. The podcast guest (his website) did a study on an email campaign. The goal was to get volunteer sign-ups.

They tested two subject lines (paraphrased):

1. Volunteer with Rock the Vote

2. Attend concerts for free

“B” was the winner. It got 4x the conversions as “A.”

The main point of the email was to get volunteers to register people to vote. However, the best part of the email to readers was free access to concerts.

Subject line “B” isn’t quite the truth about the email’s main point. Yet, it achieves the email’s goal with a true element of the email body.

Next…

#2 Shorter Messages are Better Even if They Don’t Make Sense

This one’s crazy. It goes against common marketing wisdom too. Being clear is marketing 101.

But according to the podcast guest, they tested a donation campaign, and the shorter message raked in way more donations than the longer message. The kicker?

The shorter message was simply a version of the longer message with every other sentence removed!

So, parts of the message were nonsensical. 

Note. This resulted in people pulling out their wallets. Not just a boost in vanity metrics.

Sounds crazy to me that this worked. That’s what the man said, though.

That won’t work every time, obviously. It just shows the power of shortening our messages.

Number three is a huge time-saver for readers (and helps writers home in on your main point)

#3 BLUF

BLUF is used in U.S. military writing. It means “Bottom Line Up Front.”

It is mandated that your main point be stated in the first sentence of a communication. 

The military has to be efficient. No time for pleasantries or hem-hawing around. 

Try using this tactic. Especially if your readers are busier than typical super-busy people of today.

Warning. This may kill your chance to tease content further into your marketing message.

#4 Images Should Be Clear & Concise Too

See the following award winner for clarity in a “before & after” comparison for visuals. Left-side image is the improved one.

The guest mentioned an award for unclear messages (WTF - Words that Failed award). But someone must’ve got their feelings hurt because that award page is a 404 error now. 

He did mention one recent example of terrible writing that won the WTF award. A sign that said something like, “Persons owning pets should immediately remove their pet’s excrement.” It shoulda said, “Pick up your dog’s poop.” Plain talk. 

Don’t just soak up that wisdom I slung at ya. Put it into action - as ole Brett McKay says. Now, let’s crack open The Knowledge Base…

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Recent case study saw a publisher in a sports niche get a 53.14% open rate and over 1,100 clicks in just 30 days with TrafficGrid.

Self-Help

I talk a lot about taking simple walks to benefit our health (mental and physical).

A walk’s a short getaway from the four indoor walls that close in on us. 

Another type of getaway is a long car ride. Great for clearing your head.

The roadblock? We have to choose to leave the comfort of our super-comfy homes.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: 30% of all mobile searches are location related, and mobile accounts for ____ % of all Google visitors. Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

I’m on “Team Words.”

So, I need this reminder too.

Ask yourself (especially if you’re a good writer)...

“Can I say this better with an image?”

That advice came not from a graphic design pro. It came from an old-school journalist who also loved words. But her top priority was making it EASY for readers.

Visuals take more time to create (especially for natural-born writers). It’s worth it though, if they make it easier for folks to understand your message.

ALT Hack: I hate the marketing advice of “be everywhere.” Yet, a recent stat shocked me… roughly 79% of people didn’t listen to the top 10 podcasts. Audiences are scattered!

Makes it tough to fence your audience into one platform. So, use a COPE content strategy.

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: 30% of all mobile searches are location-related, and mobile accounts for 83.58% of all Google visitors, showing the dominance of mobile in local search (Semrush)