We’re about to change your approach to writing emails. Chances are, whether you’re creating nurture or promotional content, you’re most likely spending the bulk of your time writing what’s inside the campaign—as you should. But in order for your genius content to be seen, something is required first…

Your subscribers have to open the email.

With over five years of experience writing, editing, and optimizing hundreds of email campaigns, we’ve identified one common weakness in our clients’ email marketing efforts: subject line and preview text copy. Fortunately, this is one of our greatest strengths. 

Too many small businesses are busting their butts to create great content, only for it to go unopened—and we want to do something about that. Because once you know, you know (and the results prove it).

The #1 Thing to Prioritize When Writing an Email Campaign 

The number one thing to prioritize when writing an email campaign is the subject line and preview text. First, let’s make this clear—we’re not saying to take any effort away from what you put inside the email—we’re just saying if you don’t prioritize the subject line and preview text, you’re basically leaving your audience at the front door without a ticket. 

You’ve got to make it enticing enough for them to want to come on in and see more. Conversion starts with the subject line—it’s simply fact. 

The Creative Process for Writing a Great Subject Line

Every creative process looks different, but we think you could learn a thing or two from ours. This system has allowed our team of creatives to come up with some of the most high-converting subject lines. (On average, we maintain a 70%+ open rate for our small business clients.)

Pro Tip: Write the subject line and preview text after you’ve drafted the email. 

Unless you have an immediate (genius) idea for a captivating subject line (which does happen), don’t let yourself get in a copy jam. Remember, we’re competing with robots now—we have to be efficient! Here’s how we encourage our creative team to approach writing high-converting subject lines and preview texts:

1️⃣ Brain-dump everything you plan to include in the campaign.

Your email draft doesn’t need to be send-ready—ask any copywriter, a first draft is never the final one. If you’re trying to write the final draft on the first go, we’re going to have to channel Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story and tell you: 

Take a reasonable amount of time to strategize your campaign, jot down all the elements you plan to include, and then, move on to step two. 

2️⃣ Determine the most important (or intriguing) angle you can feature in your subject line.

Now that you know the focus of—or promotion at play—inside the email, you can pinpoint the most important or intriguing angle that should be featured in your subject line. The key is creating a clear connection between what your subject line promises and what they’ll actually read inside. After all, you’d be pretty upset if you bought a ticket for The Notebook and ended up seeing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Integrity is key.    

Let’s look at an example:
Here’s a screenshot of the subject line and preview text we used in one of our previous newsletters:

It’s important to point out that in this newsletter, we included a variety of topics. It wasn’t all ChatGPT-related but we determined it was our strongest (and most important) angle within the campaign so we knew we needed to speak to it immediately. 

It would’ve been so boring to say “Here’s everything you need to know about ChatGPT.” Instead, we came up with a brain-scratching question that made you want to know the answer—in other words, get your ticket to the show. 😏 And then, once you’re inside, we had the opportunity to make you read all of our other content. *chefs kiss* 

3️⃣ Come up with at least three different options, using the Opener’s Framework©.

Every single one of our email marketing clients gets a minimum of three subject line and preview text options per campaign. Why? Because there are SO many ways to write an effective subject line. Our clients know their audience and brand voice better than anyone and we want to ensure that always shines through. 

There’s also a little thing called A/B testing—so when there’s a tiebreaker, we just try out both and then get some really awesome behavioral data on what resonates most with their audience. #score!

Let’s apply the same example to this step:

Here are the three options we came up with in our Google Doc. (Bonus tip: if you’re writing your drafts directly in your email provider, just… stop. Please. Use a word processing tool. You’ll thank us later.)

Take a look at our options: 

We drafted two very different options and then did a marriage of the two. As you can gather from reading these, we determined two important angles we wanted to get across—one being on ChatGPT and the other being our revamped newsletter. 

When it came down to making a decision, we asked ourselves, “What would our audience care most about knowing and learning?” The answer was obvious. No one really cares about our revamped newsletter. ChatGPT FTW. 

How to Write High-Converting Subject Lines for Email Marketing: Use Our Strategy

Introducing, the Opener’s Framework©—a proven set of strategies for writing effective and high-converting subject lines for emails. 

THE SEVEN SHARP SUBJECT LINE OPENERS ⤵️

🤔 Ask a probing question they probably don’t know the answer to
😲 Hit ‘em with a BOLD statement that has them thinking, “Did they really just say that?!”
🤯 Blow their mind with a shocking statistic that plays into your narrative
🧐 Tease just enough so they are itching to know more
🥵 Create a sense of urgency through numbers and direct data callouts
🤑 Incentivize by saying what’s in it for them
🤓 Play teacher and offer out a “how-to”

If you follow the first three steps and then use one of these tactics to craft your subject line options, you’re sure to boost your email open rate. No doubt about it.

Hey, Read This 

We’re in the process of building a digital resource that includes the Opener’s Framework© in an even more supportive way. It’ll be our version of Email Marketing 101—but on steroids. We suggest you get on the waitlist to be the first to know about it. 

And if you have no interest in strategically brainstorming one little subject line that could result in major dividends for your biz, just leave it to us.