Copy should be short & interesting

Subject lines have one job - to get the recipient to open.

Yeah, no shit.

Then why are you telling them that it’s for a “Webinar: Oct. 23rd at 4pm PDT: How To Write Shitty Subject Lines and Other Things You Already Know How to Do Poorly Because You Relied on a Crappy Subject Line Generator Web App and Now You’re Stuck at 17% Opens Even With the New Apple Privacy Policy That’s Artificially Inflating Open Rates”?

Oh yeah, stop using Title Caps in subject lines (and most every headline you write that’s meant to be read as a sentence).

When You Write Headlines Like This They Are Slightly Harder to Read

But when you write headlines like this they are slightly easier to read

It’s especially hard for folks with dyslexia - who make up 15% of your audience.

That’s nothing to scoff at if you’re struggling to get above that abysmal 17% open rate.

Know that People scan first. Then they read the first sentence. And then the second. And so on.

So your first sentence has one job: get the recipient to read the second sentence.

Your first sentence should be under 8 words.

If it’s over 8, find every unneeded word and cut it out - I guarantee there are more than you think. (20 words)

(If it’s over 8, find and cut unneeded words. There are more than you think. (15 words)

If any sentence is over 30 words, the preceding and subsequent sentences need to be short - 8 to 12 words at most.

Make sure sentences are easy to read:

Fatigue will kill your clicks

Avoid big words if possible

No one thinks you're smart for using the word supercilious. We just think you're arrogant or hiding something.

Know the difference between active & passive voice.

It's simple. The subject of the sentence should perform the action.

Active:

I want better email copy

(Subject: is “I” and the action is “want”)

Passive:

Better email copy is the thing that I want

Active:

The dog chases the ball

(Subject is “the dog” and the action is “chases”)

Passive:

The ball is being chased by the dog.

Avoid adverbs when possible:

They’re gross 67% of the time (no source but it's facts).

If you need to “go long” give the reader “candy”

Candy = small mental breaks.

No, not froofy, flowery writing that your 5th Grade teacher Mrs. Whipple told you was "an impeccable example of literary excellence" - but interesting bits that keep a reader fresh.

Giving candy isn’t my advice.

It’s Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, the dude who writes for the new yorker and recently had a massively cold take on remote work. But I’ll be damned if he’s not an all-time great.

He talks about it in his aptly named Masterclass: Malcolm Gladwell Teaches Writing.

If you don’t have a Masterclass subscription, this guy did a nice job of summarizing.

(bee tee dubbs: I had masterclass for a year. it wasn’t really worth it)

Editing isn’t just finding typos and grammar mistakes

When you’ve finished writing your copy, read it out loud and delete unnecessary words. (14 words)

When finished, read your copy and delete unnecessary words. (9 words)

Other general copywritng tips:

When you see something that makes you say “oh shit, that’s good copy” - save it.

When you’re not so damn busy - pull it out and copy it down word for word.

Seriously.

Do this with books, too. When you’re reading a book and come across a delicious bit of writing - copy it, word for word.

Do that 1,000 or so times and it’ll build muscle memory.

Buy this course by Cole Schafer.

It’s $97 and easily worth $98 or more. The things I learned in it have made people (not me) millions.

When in doubt - use Hemingway App to help you cut through the crap

Don’t go chasin’ waterfalls

Meaning: stop worrying about ideal send days and times.

That’s sooooo 2014.

Guess what happens when everyone follows the advice of the top 5 search results for “Best Time to Send Email?

Well, dear reader, that advice gets followed by 120,000 marketers every year (seriously, the search volume is 10k/month x 12 months = 120,000) and it stops being good advice.

So what do you do? Go with your gut and test. If you want to get data driven, purchase an integration like Seventh Sense - it can be a big help.

Stop using bad “Send from” & “Reply to” addresses

Set your “Send from” & “Reply to” to an actual human.

Google, Microsoft, and other email clients look for “marketing@” / “hello@” / “hey@” / “noreply@” and filter into promotions tabs.

Pick who email gets sent “from” - I suggest the best looking person in the C-Suite - if you need to create a new inbox for him or her (and route any replies to a marketing inbox) then do that. But maybe have that C-Level Exec earn their pay (which is, on average, 324x your pay by the way) by learning to filter out auto-replies. Not to mention actually hearing from the people they’re making you send cold marketing email to...

Never send from a subdomain like news.mycompanystinksatemail.com

Humans don’t send from subdomains - only bad marketers.

(This might be why your opens & clicks are in the toilet)

No emojis in the subject line - humans rarely put emojis in the subject line but marketers do all the time.

Google, Microsoft, and other email clients know this and it’s a filtering rule that will land you in Promotions Tabs - or worse, SPAM.

(Side note: “spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam!” and the angry cafe waitress screams “Shut up!”)

Limit yourself to one link (save for unsubscribe/manage preferences links)

This means no link in the logo or header. Scrap the logo/header if an unlinked logo feels like bad UX.

And get rid of your bullshit social sharing links. No one is clicking those on purpose.

Hell, consider no links (save for unsub/pref) when possible.

Example: Send on behalf of the contact owner. The Call to Action is a reply - not a click.

(Remember to keep these types of no-click-intended email “quarantined” in separate campaign reporting if your C-Suite cares more about FYI metrics (open & clicks) and not KPIs (conversations started, pipeline driven, demand generated).

Give your reader one CTA.

The job of the email is to get a click or reply. Nothing more. (This will help with brevity).

Set simple, clear goals for your email

Some examples:

1. A nurture email should rev up lead scores or get Leads to engage with valuable content - not communicate your entire value prop in a 450 word monstrosity that asks the reader (no one) to “Request a Demo” 14 times throughout.

(oooohhh we should all be so lucky to get a demo of your software that I already have access to 3 times over in other tools - pls accept my REQUEST)

2. A webinar invitation sequence/workflow should be measured by the amount of Registrants, Attendees, and No-Show downloaders. Not the amount of revenue generated or even pipeline driven. That comes later. Webinars are like the first date - not the third. Stop asking to go all the way on the first date. Your prospects aren’t that easy.

If they are willing to go all the way on the first date, understand that they’re an exception to the rule, not the rule. Take the win, but don’t expect it to keep happening. Your brand isn’t that good looking.

Rules are meant to be broken

There will always be exceptions. There will always be reasons to break certain rules. These are guidelines.

You’re brilliant and you’re not afraid to throw caution to the wind. Or whatever.