The Word Wrangler

Because people get so much spam in their inboxes, the subject line in an e-mail is more important than a headline for an article. Even with a lackluster headline, many people still dip into the article’s body, become hooked, and continue reading. It’s a different story with e-mail, though. You have only one shot. If a person isn’t immediately captured by your subject line, they’ll never bother to open the e-mail, and your effort is wasted.

One of the first steps to writing a great subject line is to know your target audience and what they desire. This is why mass e-mailings are often ineffective because the sender rarely knows who they’re sending to or what’s on their minds.

Here are a few tips for creating irresistible subject lines:

If you’re target audience is male, then consider using the word boobies in the subject line. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to sell toner cartridges or asking for charitable donations, putting boobies in your subject line will give you a 99% chance that the e-mail will be opened.

The reason why this technique is so effective is simple: men like boobies. And it really doesn’t matter to us how many e-mails we get with the word boobies in the subject line either because we’ll likely open every single one. I got an e-mail this morning with the word boobies in the subject line, and although I was at work, I forwarded it to my personal e-mail so I could open it when I went home for lunch.

Now I can hear many of you saying, “But Mike, what if we keep using the word boobies to get people to open the e-mail and there are no boobies?” “Won’t they just stop opening the e-mails after a certain point?”

This is a great question. I’ve done some research, and found the answer to be no. Generally speaking, men will open anything, at any time, if there’s just the slightest chance that actual boobies will appear. Now, I must caution you to not repeat the same subject line over and over again, because men will most likely become wise after opening 20 or so e-mails with the same subject line and not seeing any boobies.

Try mixing things up like this:

She showed me her boobies
Look at these awesome boobies
These boobies can lower your taxes
Boobies for breakfast? Why not?

See? Mix it up and you’ll keep the reader opening e-mails all day.

Okay, I can hear another group of you saying, “But Mike, what if you’re writing e-mails to women?” “How do we get their attention?”

That’s another great question, and honestly, I don’t have a clue. I have done fairly well in getting women’s attention during my time on earth, but it’s mostly been negative, so you’re really on your own at this point.