Ask Us ANYTHING: Subject Line Trick Nobody Knows! | Ep. 462

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for Ask Us Anything from the Do This Not That podcast. This is our super short episode. We're getting questions all week long. We get in word questions. We get in ridiculous questions. We try to tackle one of each. If you want to submit a question, I would genuinely appreciate it because that's how we do the show. All you got to do is go to jschwedelson.com.

0:35There's a button that says podcast. Another one that says ask us anything. Anything you want to ask us, we're down. And also you can hang out there and check stuff out. Anyway, let's get into the work question first. We have a question from Jamie from Nashville, Tennessee. I was just back in Nashville. I love Nashville, but I went there with people who had never been there before. And when you go to Nashville, I was like, you got to have the hot chicken. which is true. So we went to this place called Hattie B's. And if you've never been to Hattie B's, they serve, I mean, it's not like hot chicken, like it's steaming hot.

1:13It's hot where it's like spicy. And so, yeah, this was a serious bathroom experience because what happened was the highest level you can get of their hot chicken is shut the clock up. And so that's what we got. And when you first take a bite of it, you're like, oh, this isn't that bad. And then like 30 seconds later, a minute later, you want to, I mean, it's over. You're like, oh, do I have a will? Because my life is over. And then the super fun part that happened for me was, and this is TMI, like it was like an instant reaction. And I raced to the restroom. And of course at Hattie B's, there is a line for the restroom because everybody's having the same problem.

1:56They need like 74 bathrooms at a place like this. It is unacceptable to have like the standard amount of restrooms when you serve something called shut the clock up. Speaking of shut the clock up, that's me. Let's get into your question, Jamie. What do you got? Jay, you love talking about subject lines. That's true. I do. So I want to hear a subject line test that is working that I've never tried. I've tried a lot. Hit me. Ooh, a challenge. All right. I got one for you that's crushing it this works for business marketers consumer marketers non-profits i don't care who you are so we all know everyone's like oh do personalization in your subject line okay great everybody knows that right and i'm not talking about putting your first name in the subject line everybody knows okay great you want to do that even though it's 1985 i don't like first name personalization but the personalization most people know at this point is to do stuff in the subject line and this is not the the test is to do stuff like oh if you're doing business to business marketing, put the person's industry in the subject line, like trends in the construction industry.

3:01That works really well, that kind of personalization. Or on the consumer side, you talk about their interests just for DIYers. When the concept is, I'm going to help you take it one step further. The sooner you tell somebody who they are, the faster they want to engage. So when you put somebody's industry or put their interests in the subject line, it does lift open rates by about 20%. But that's not the one I'm going to hit you with that you probably have never tried. There is another level, okay? There's another level of personalization that really gets at our core. And that is this idea of aspirational subject lines.

3:38Ooh, what does that mean? So for example, on the business to business side, if you are marketing to, you know, manager level or maybe director level contacts, what you want to do is you want to frame your subject lines at a C level. Why? Because those individuals want to be a CMO, a CFO, a C-whatever-O. So instead of positioning the emails as if they are a manager or a director, you do subject lines like this, how CMOs can market to CFOs, the CFOs Guide to Automation, five skills CMOs need. And you know that your database, you don't have a lot of CMOs or CFOs, but you have the people below that.

4:21And what do we all want? We all want to know, how do you do it? How are they doing it? What do I need to read? What do I need to consume? What do I need to attend to be at that C-level? So when you talk a level above whatever the audience is in your database, it crushes it. It also crushes it on the consumer side, right? For the tech savvy buyer, oh, I'm really not tech savvy, but I want to know what the tech savvy people are doing. Luxury seekers love this. I can't afford luxury. I want to know what the luxury people are buying, how affluent investors evaluate stocks. Yeah, I want to know what the rich people are doing, and they buy their stocks.

5:05Whatever your audience is, talk a level up. What CMOs know, every CEO reads this technology leaders guide to network security talk a level up it's this idea of aspirational marketing that really especially this time of year it gets us going and here's the wild side on the data we've done we've tested this across about 50 million email sends that we've done we found on the business side when you do an aspirational subject line versus a standard one it will lift your open rates by about 28 according to our world data research group and the consumer side, it will lift it by about 24%. So aspirational subject lines are really, really cool.

5:48All right, let's get into the ridiculous question. We got a question from Bill from Tucson, Arizona. Jay, you don't talk about healthy stuff a lot. Are you not healthy? That's a strange question. Am I not healthy? I mean, I try. guy i'm not like out there trying to be like you know i don't even i was gonna say jane fonda but that's like the most dated thing i could possibly say who is really fit the rock i don't know who's really fit right now i don't know but you know i do my thing oh i will tell you here you go bill you can shove it bill um i'm gonna tell you something i did do this past weekend this is so ridiculous i'm gonna get so much uh i don't even know what hate or whatever for this so ridiculous so this past weekend um my wife says to me she goes hey uh because she's she's very healthy she's all into all sorts of stuff right she's really healthy she's a doctor so whatever so she goes you've never tried cryotherapy do you want to go try whole body cryotherapy i said what the hell is that and she's like okay so we got in the car and we went right where i live in bocceau they have this like place like in this like strip mall where you go in and i did it and what it was it was so weird they had this big machine and the machine has like it looks like it's like it's like it's got a little room in it that ends with a big window and you can tell it's freezing in there because it's like frosted glass and all this stuff and so um i did it first and what it is is you get down to your boxers and then you put on socks and gloves and then this woman who was doing it for us set it up i think i think it was 50 bucks i think that's how much it was and she goes or something like that and she goes okay you're going to go in there for three minutes it's going to be minus 200 degrees and you have to be able to stay in there for three minutes and if you have a problem just you know knock on the glass or whatever i'm like this is wild and she was but you what what song do you want to play because we're going to blast music for you while you're in there i'm like oh okay and i said um i said brass monkey by the beastie voice which was a phenomenal song choice i must say she was like this is fantastic because she usually she gets something like you know watermelon high or whatever from what's his face um anyway she goes are you ready i go absolutely not but i was i did it anyway so she opened up the door thing and you get in and it's like this like i don't even know three foot by three foot thing that you stand in and it's really cold but i just found myself dancing the whole time and it wasn't i mean i should say it was really it wasn't bad at all and then you get out and everyone's like, people ask me after I said I did it, they go, what did it accomplish?

8:32I'm like, I have no idea. And they're like, it's good for anti-inflammatory, whatever the hell that means and recovery from what, I don't know. And energy, I have no idea what I accomplished. All I know is I did it and Bill, you can suck it because I feel like that was a healthy thing. So yeah, I don't know. I'm down to try stuff. You know, a little woo-woo, but I don't care. Anyway, weird question, a weird podcast. Anyway, whatever. Hey, go to jschwedelson.com. Drop me a note in there. Let's partner going to 2026. I do all sorts of crazy stuff. My agency, I don't even know what. I appreciate you being here.

9:05And go try cryotherapy or don't, or don't. You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast. And if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, give it a five-star review. Why not? But you know what? I want to do even more with you. Go to gurumediahub.com and we can partner there. You can find out about all of our free events, all of our stuff. And if you're epically bored, go to jschwedelson.com and we can stay connected. You can find my newsletter and everything else I got going on. Thanks for being here and hope you subscribe.