{"id":3127,"date":"2014-05-21T11:11:05","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T16:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/blog\/?p=3127"},"modified":"2015-10-06T15:14:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T20:14:05","slug":"subject-line-will-get-cold-email-opened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/?p=3127","title":{"rendered":"What cold email subject lines get opened? (Real world results)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3132\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline.png\" alt=\"subjectline\" width=\"854\" height=\"336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline.png 854w, https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline-300x118-1.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 854px) 100vw, 854px\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3132\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline.png\" alt=\"subjectline\" width=\"854\" height=\"336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline.png 854w, https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/subjectline-300x118-1.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 854px) 100vw, 854px\" \/><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>[su_quote style=&#8221;modern-light&#8221;]<strong>Bonus<\/strong>:[content_upgrade id=&#8221;20&#8243;]Download a copy of the email template and subject line that I use for cold emails.[\/content_upgrade] [\/su_quote]<\/p>\n<p>Targeted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quicksprout.com\/2013\/06\/17\/how-i-built-my-first-business-through-email-marketing\/\">cold email<\/a> is one of\u00a0the fastest ways to <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/blog\/3000pm\">build your business<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It can also be the best way to come across as a jerk face spammer.<\/p>\n<p>Building business = Good<\/p>\n<p>Jerk face spammer = Bad<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had a lot of\u00a0success over the last 2 years using this approach. But after talking with a few friends I discovered that many have had very negative experiences. Once\u00a0they forwarded me their emails, I found out why.\u00a0The email copy was terrible.<\/p>\n<p>The #1 most common problem was<!--more--> the subject line.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then, last week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.RotarySwing.com\" target=\"_blank\">Josh<\/a> emailed me asking for the specific cold email subject lines <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/blog\/3kpermonth\/\" target=\"_blank\">that I use<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Instead of just writing a short email back, I shot an entire video walking him\u00a0through the 3-part framework that I use to write subject lines.<\/p>\n<h2>Video: 3 part framework\u00a0to write a cold email subject line that gets opened<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wistia_embed\" src=\"\/\/fast.wistia.net\/embed\/iframe\/qwssyd3wcy?videoFoam=true\" name=\"wistia_embed\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Video Transcription<\/p>\n<p>Josh recently wrote me and asked me this question:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What subject line did you use in the emails.\u00a0In this blog post&#8221;and he\u00a0linked the 3K per month blog post that I wrote a few months ago. He said &#8220;I\u00a0looked and looked and can&#8217;t find it in there. Sorry if I missed that it, but it\u2019s obviously one of the\u00a0key pieces; if they don&#8217;t open the email, they never see the customized video you sent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So yeah, that&#8217;s a good question. Actually I didn&#8217;t realize at the time but this is the email that was\u00a0included.<\/p>\n<p>And I blanked out the company information because it wasn&#8217;t relevant and is somebody that I am\u00a0still working with through the sales\u00a0process so I don&#8217;t really want to give the name out right now.<\/p>\n<p>But I didn&#8217;t include the actual subject line. So this is the email here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. If you&#8217;re interested in taking this approach. Go copy that email, it works really well for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Your subject line.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The subject line is very, very, very simple. And I have three key things that I do when I&#8217;m writing\u00a0a subject line. First the subject line was just the name of the company. So let&#8217;s say I was writing\u00a0this to Kissmetrics. It was the &#8220;kissmetrics blog video&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it.\u00a0Three words. The name of the\u00a0company, blog, video. Really short, really sweet, really to the point.<\/p>\n<h2>Cold Email Subject Line Tips<\/h2>\n<p><strong>1. Keep it short.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I try to keep my subject lines under four words when I&#8217;m writing to an individual. One, because\u00a0this is way quicker to write and it seems more conversational when I\u2019m talking to them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Keep it casual.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t write it like a blog post. Write it like you&#8217;re writing a letter to your mom. You would never\u00a0write a letter to your mom that started &#8220;the ten ways to clean your house faster&#8221;. It would just be hey Mom, what&#8217;s up? And then in the body of your email would be whatever going to write.<\/p>\n<p>Write\u00a0your e-mails the same way.<\/p>\n<p>These people you&#8217;re writing to get inundated with e-mails all the\u00a0time.<\/p>\n<p>And one thing add do to keep it casual is use all lower case letters as the first letter of the\u00a0word. So if it was kissmetrics blog video. The K of kissmetrics should be lowercase. The B in\u00a0blogger should be lowercase and that V in video should be lower case.<\/p>\n<p>That makes a stand out.<\/p>\n<p>When I get, in the way I found that out is paid attention to the emails that I open.<\/p>\n<p>I archive a\u00a0ton of e-mails and delete\u00a0e-mails that come and\u00a0look like blog post. Some of those I might be\u00a0interested in but if it looks like another blog post that doesn&#8217;t really stand out to me.<\/p>\n<p>But I\u00a0realized I was opening every message to have all our case letters in the title. And you might not\u00a0like that personally.<\/p>\n<p>But here&#8217;s the deal it&#8217;s not really about you.<\/p>\n<p>The key is does it work or not. Start noticing your emails that you get, the ones that are from people are written differently\u00a0than the ones that are from blogs that are being broadcast out a ton of people.<\/p>\n<p>So try to write an\u00a0email like a person and not like a blog.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Keep it relevant.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Make sure whatever you have in that title is relevant to your message.<\/p>\n<p>If I wrote something\u00a0about &#8220;your product is awesome&#8221; and then I wrote a email that was trying to sell them this blog\u00a0service.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not really all that relevant. So try to keep your subject line at least tangentially\u00a0related to the body of your email.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #404040; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 33.6px;\">Summary of Framework<\/span><\/p>\n<p>1. <strong>Short<\/strong>: Your subject line ideally will be 3 words. Keep it short.<\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>Casual<\/strong>: Write a subject line to a specific person.\u00a0Be human.<\/p>\n<p>3. <strong>Relevant<\/strong>: Keep your subject line related to the email. No bait and switch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PS:<\/strong> Do you have a subject line formula that has worked really well for you? Share it in the comment section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[su_quote style=&#8221;modern-light&#8221;]Bonus:[content_upgrade id=&#8221;20&#8243;]Download a copy of the email template and subject line that I use for cold emails.[\/content_upgrade] [\/su_quote] Targeted&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}