If you’re emailing someone that doesn’t already know you, getting your emails read can be an uphill battle. To make your message stand out, don’t be afraid to try getting a little weird with the subject line.
As writing tips site Copyblogger explains, people tend to breeze through their inboxes pretty quickly and won’t read something unless it really stands out. There are a variety of ways you can make your message seem more interesting, but one way is to go weird. If you can make the reader go, “Wait, what?” you’re already ahead of the curve:
Like the email subject line I shared in the opening, where it said, “Don’t f*** with me.” That’s pretty weird and it gets your attention. It’s out of the ordinary… And, of course, you can make up an unusual statement or a word.
Of course, being weird is a bit like asking someone out on a date: confidence and style matters. If you awkwardly throw profanity into a subject line, then spend your first paragraph awkwardly explaining why you tricked them, you’ll lose interest fast.
The point isn’t to be weird or provocative for it’s own sake. Rather, allow yourself the freedom to step outside of a carbon copy box. If your message is likely to get ignored anyway, you may as well let some of your natural creativity show through.
The Psychology Behind Winning Email Subject Lines [Copyblogger]
Comments
5 responses to “Try A Weird Subject Line To Get Your Emails Read”
Also profanity might get blocked by most business’s email filter
Tell this to literally every email in the spam folder of my inbox.
This is downright terrible advice. It replicates the spam which we are actually conditioned to ignore and distrust, and as such is massively counter-intuitive.
All this does is makes IT workers jobs harder (like me..). I’m constantly telling people not to open emails if they’re not expecting them, and if they don’t seem genuine from who they’re from, and the subject. So all this does is condition people to open every email they get. Suddenly, viruses.
No better way to read email than on the Compy 386.