The Psychology of Open Rates

Hey ,

Welcome back to The Intelligent Marketer, where over 12,260 growth-minded founders, agency owners, and marketers go to learn modern marketing strategies.

Every email is focused on helping you build owned marketing assets to drive leads and revenue for your business (instead of relying on paid channels).

The most important words you write for your next email is your subject line. If you don’t have a good subject line, no one will open your email.

And that’s the reality of email marketing.

Here’s the good news. Good subject lines aren’t that hard. You just have to know how to write a good hook to get your recipients interested in what you have to say.

A good hook can use different tactics, but they’re all going to tap into a deep desire of people in general. I like two, in particular: curiosity and FOMO. Let’s take a closer look.

Trigger Curiosity

One of the best tools you can use in your subject lines is curiosity. We’re all so used to finding out the answers to our questions right away that the thought of not having our curiosity sated is difficult to manage. Especially in our fast-paced, Google-any-question-in-30-seconds world, exciting someone’s desire to know is key to getting them to open your email.

You can craft subject lines that use this to your advantage. If you promise your recipient a secret solution to a problem they can relate to, they’ll open your email. If you offer them insights based on your unique experience that might contradict what they’ve heard from others, they’ll open your email.

The deal is that you have to deliver. If you consistently excite their curiosity but never deliver on the implied promise of useful information or a helpful tool, they’ll soon write your emails off as clickbait. Offer them true value, just wrap that offer in a subject line that piques their curiosity.

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Press Urgency and Exclusivity

Along with curiosity, you have to press the urgency and exclusivity of what you’re offering them. Nobody wants to feel like they’re left out of something everyone else is in on. We all also want to feel like we’re in the club of people in the know. Urgency and exclusivity both use this desire in all of us to communicate the value of what you’re offering.

Urgency is most often created by a time-limited offer. Maybe you’re only offering a resource for free for a certain time. Or maybe you’re offering an event, course, livestream, etc. and send out a final communication to draw readers into the event. Whatever your offer, when you communicate a sense of urgency, readers will feel internal pressure to open your email and find out what all the excitement is about.

All of us want to be sure that we will be safe. When we feel like there is some kind of vital knowledge or experience everyone else has that we don’t, it often taps into our desire to be safe and secure. We don’t want to be left out in the cold, figuratively or literally, because we didn’t take an opportunity that was offered us.

A/B Testing

Finally, use A/B testing on your email list to directly compare two subject lines and how they perform. Play around with different focuses depending on the product, event, or service you’re trying to promote in the next email you send.

One of the ways to learn what good hooks sound like is to look at what hooks tend to perform well. Pick a hook that fits well with your current email topic. Then, write a subject line using that hook and another subject line using slightly different wording but appealing to the same basic desire.

By comparing the open rates of these two subject lines, you’ll be able to see exactly which of the two styles had more of an effect on your audience. This information can be incredibly helpful, especially over time as you continue to refine the hooks that work best for your specific list.

Finally, here are a few examples to help get you started. We’ll assume you’re writing to your list to offer a free resource you’ve developed for your audience.

Curiosity:

• A: One Surefire Way to Increase Your Productivity This Year (the time of year can make a difference, too. This subject might be more impactful around the New Year)

• B: One Tool to Exponentially Grow Your Productivity This Year

• A: My Secret to Getting Everything Done

• B: My One Most Important Habit for Personal Productivity

Urgency/Exclusivity:

• A: Last Chance to Register For The Free Productivity Webinar

• B: Last Call Before This Productivity Training Is Gone Forever

• A: I’ve Developed This Tool For You; 10 Spots Left

• B: Check Out This Productivity Tool Before It’s Gone

Of course, these examples are a little vague because I don’t know exactly what you’re going to be pitching to your readers. But these examples should be enough to get you started writing subject lines that cause your open rates to skyrocket.

That’s all for this week!

Thanks for reading.

Eric Higgs
Founder of Summit Group
Newsletter & Email Marketing Agency

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

• If you’re reading this online, join over 3,000+ subscribers receiving regular emails helping them build, automate, and grow their business with email.

• If you’re struggling to grow your newsletter, click HERE to learn more about Summit Group, our full-service newsletter agency.