NEW: Ultimate Subject Line Test Ideas🫨Jay's SCOOP | Ep. 519

0:01Welcome to Do This, Not That, the podcast for 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 Do This, Not That podcast, and today I want to do a new, all new, ultimate email subject line test ideas. Because everyone thinks they're email subject lines, you've tried it all. You're a business marketer, consumer, nonprofit, you've done it all and you can't get your emails to work, but there's always new tactics to try. And I have a research group called World Data Research, and we execute over 40 ,000 campaigns annually and over 6 billion emails that we send out.

0:41And we're always trying new stuff. So I'm not going to share with you stuff you already know, like urgency or making your subject line a question. That's boring. Everybody knows that stuff. I want to share stuff with you that maybe you haven't tried, and these are not going to all work, but they're easy tests. I don't care how big or small your brand is. This is easy stuff that you can test. And some things that I thought were used to be terrible and that we retested and actually working really well right now, which is always the case in marketing. You got to always go back and retest. So I'm going to rip through some different test ideas.

1:11There's a horrible way to do a podcast because you're out walking or driving. You're like, well, what am I going to do with this? I'm going to have to re-listen to this garbage. I don't know. Maybe you'll remember one of them. What can I tell you? And at the end, I'll share with you nonsense that's going on in my life because that's what I do. All right. So the first test that really was surprising to us is having your subject line look like a calendar invite. This is crushing it. In our research, it's actually lifting open rates 28%. So what does that look like in your subject line? The subject line would literally say, you know, Thursday, 2.15 PM, or it would say 11, tomorrow, 11 a.m.

1:48And this might be the date that you're releasing a new guide. This might be the date that you're releasing, announcing a new sale going live in the consumer side or donation things being open or a webinar event that's going to happen. But literally all you're putting is tomorrow, 11 a.m. or Thursday, 2.15 p.m. The person opens it up because they think, oh, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be there. And it works really, really well. Now, there's a tactic that I used to hate, but now I'm doing again and it's crushing it. So if you send out an email newsletter, back in the day, it used to be that all the email newsletters that were sent out at the start of their subject line, you would have in brackets, you would have the addition.

2:29So it might say like my newsletter is called scoop. Back in the day, five years ago, it might have bracket the word scoop and then number 22 and then close bracket. And then you'd have your subject line after that. and that used to be what all the newsletters did and that became wallpaper and started doing terrible. And so everybody stopped doing it with their email newsletters. Well, I'm here to report that tactic is now crushing it again. And by the way, you could put brackets in your subject line, exclamation marks, capitalized letters, words, emojis, dollar signs. You're not going to the junk folder or spam folder for any of that.

3:04That has nothing to do with the reason you go to the junk folder, spam folder anymore. So when I tell you for your newsletter, like in my newsletter, for example, we switch from the regular, just write something crazy subject line to starting the subject line with a bracket. Then we put the name of the newsletter. Then we put the number sign and then we put the number like 212. And then we close the bracket. And then we put a subject line after that. It is lifting our email open rates on our newsletters over 20%. Anne Hanley does this with her newsletter as well now. And a lot of other folks do it with all their newsletters.

3:36So if you haven't tried that with your newsletter, it's a tactic we used to avoid, but it has come back in a big way in the last six months. So another one that we've been testing that's working phenomenal is starting your subject lines with a conjunction. So literally starting your subject line with, and then this happened, or you would say, but here's the problem. And I don't care if you're a business marketer, consumer marketer, nonprofit, if you're a conservative industry, a regulated industry, something boring, you can start your subject line with, and then this happened. You're creating that different kind of curiosity.

4:09And from our research group, we're seeing this lift open rates by about 17%. All right. My other favorite one right now is adding a period after every word. So for example, you might say something like this period changes period, everything period. Because when you see that in your mind instantly, even though it's in your subconscious, it creates drama, right? And this weird pacing when you're reading it, that tactic alone is actually lifting open rates by about 24%. So if you've never tried a period and then you do a space in between each word, then you are leading one of the coolest tactics out there that you can try.

4:45The other super random one that I love that we've been doing forever is that two weeks before the next month, you put the next month in the subject line. So for example, let's say it's June 15th, You would put in the subject line, July is going to be really huge, or July's webinar is going to be amazing, or July sale starts now. When you mention the next month, two weeks prior to that month starting, for some reason, people get a little excited about it because they're like, ooh, I'm going to be ahead of the game. And that lifts open rates by about 14 % from what we're seeing. The last one, before I get into ridiculous nonsense, is double spacing.

5:23This one's really visually a little bit about creating a little white space and people don't even realize it and why they're opening it. And this one lifts open rates by about 10 to 12%. But literally between each word in your subject line, you put two spaces instead of one. And oddly, it actually works. Again, no one's going to look at your subject line and be like, oh my God, that's amazing. I see two spaces, but it visually catches their eye for a split second. So again, these are all little things that you can try that kind of mix it up a little bit. And that's what you want to do. You always want to mix it up a little bit.

5:55So let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast called Since You Didn't Ask. So I just talked really fast. Wow, I just talked really fast. And I stopped drinking coffee. So this is me without coffee. That's not my topic. So I'm curious about something, if everyone else feels this way, the way that I feel, which is I was at this small industry conference in the last week. And it was down here in South Florida, where I live. And it was at this hotel and the hotel had a pool. And so in between like the sessions and stuff, and at the end of the day, after the sessions broke, there was a significant number of people from the event that were at the swimming pool of the hotel where the event was, It was a multi-day event.

6:42And so I walked outside to see what was going on. And there were all these people that before, like an hour or two before, I saw them in the sessions. I saw a couple of speakers, but they were in their bathing suits and they were in the water and they were sitting on lounge chairs. And I was totally not into it. And everyone was like, Hey Jay, what's going on? I don't know why. I don't know what this means about me, but I don't want to see people that I do any kind of work with or anything to do in my industry in bathing suits. I will not be in a bathing suit at an industry event. I don't know why it's weird.

7:19It's like, I don't want to see a dude with no shirt on. Then the next day I have to interact with him or I don't want to see a woman in a, in a, I don't know. What does that mean? I don't know why that's a problem for me. I was so uncomfortable because one of the dudes was trying to have a real conversation with me. He had no shirt on. He had very short bathing suit on, shorts. And I'm like, I don't want to be in this discussion. I felt weird. I don't know. And then the other one, which wasn't at this event, but I've seen other events. And I know this is really bad because a lot of people like to do this, but at nighttime, there'll be like a bar, like an event at a bar, like a cocktail reception.

7:54And then there'll be music and then people will dance. And I don't know what it is, but I don't want to see people that I do work with dancing. Like I don't want to see my clients dancing. I'm definitely not dancing. I don't want to see other people in the industry dancing. I know that's terrible, but why do I feel like there are certain activities that shouldn't be done with work, people dancing, swimming pool. What else? I don't know. Yoga. I have no idea, but let's not, maybe you like this stuff. It's probably a me thing. Everything is a me thing. But if you see me and you're in a bathing suit, please don't come near me.

8:35I don't want to interact with you. I don't care if you have like, you're like of a six pack. I don't care. It's not about that. It's just weird. Am I weird? Probably. Anyway, thanks for being here. Leave this thing a review, please. It helps us circulate the show and what else? I don't know. Don't wear a full outfit if you're going to be by the pool. I don't know. Do something later. Wait, I have two huge things to share with you. First, I have a book coming out. Stupider People Have Done It. It's coming out the first week of June and all net author proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

9:16This book might be terrible, but who cares? When you buy this thing on Amazon or anywhere else, you are going to be helping to kick cancer's butt. let's do that together. The second thing is you can go to jschwedelson.com. On the upper right hand corner, there's this thing that says partner. My agency wants to help you. If you're a business marketer, consumer marketer, it doesn't make a difference. I want to help you drive net new sales, registrations, growth, change the design, all the stuff that you are doing. Hit me up there. Also, if you want to do brand collabs, I want to know about your brand.

9:49I want to help you amplify that message. Go to jschwedelson.com, click on partner. Let's do stuff together. And the last thing is leave this show a review. If it wasn't the absolute worst podcast you've ever heard. And you're awesome for being here. Later.