3 Tips for Great E-zine Subject Lines
by Meredith HillThe following guest column by business coach Meredith Hill is the latest in a series on how to make more money selling travel.
Dedicating yourself to sending an electronic newsletter, or e-zine, to clients and prospective clients every single week is quite a commitment. It takes time, effort and discipline. But it does pay off.
The simple marketing act of sending weekly e-zines will get your phone ringing and inbox dinging on a consistent basis. It will also change the way you see yourself – from travel agent to true business owner.
But if people are not opening and reading your e-zine, it’s all a waste of time.
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What’s your open rate?
An average open rate for a weekly e-zine is about 10% to 12%. But to have a decent impact on your marketing, you should aim for higher-than-average open rate.
So how do you get more readers to open your weekly e-zine? There is a very simple answer to this question – great subject lines!
If you use Outlook and have it set up in the standard view, the subject line is what appears in your inbox next to the “From” column. (Since you can customize your inbox view, yours may look different.)
Don’t be a bore
If you have been dedicating yourself to your e-zine on a weekly basis, but have been putting “Jane’s E-zine” in the subject line, chances are you’re seeing a pretty low open rate.
Another common mistake is to put the title of your feature article in the subject line. Again, most of the time, that is not going to get people to open your e-zine.
Can you imagine magazines and newspapers on newsstands with generic, boring headlines? People would not buy them. Sales would plummet.
Strong headlines sell. Be honest. How many times have you purchased a magazine while standing in line at the grocery store simply because the headline was just too tempting?
3 tricks that work
The moral of the story is that to increase readership you must be deliberate – and creative – with your e-zine subject lines. Below are three tips for generating great subject lines.
Tip #1: Ask a powerful question
This one works like a charm. Ask a question that really digs into emotional triggers. For example, “When will you finally put your feet up?”
Tip #2: Use a conversational tone
The best copywriting reads like a conversation. So use your subject line to create a dialog with your readers by using words like “you” and “me.”
For example, let’s say you are holding a wine tasting with a river cruise line rep and you want to get more people to show up. The subject line of your e-zine, or of a separate email invitation, could be, “Are you coming on Saturday?”
Tip #3: Tell an emotional story
Use the subject line to tease people with an emotional snippet of a story. For instance, if your target market is brides, your subject line might say, “Tears streaming down her face …” or, “They lost her luggage in Montego Bay …”
This is also known as the eavesdropper technique, because we are all eavesdroppers at heart.
Gather ideas
If you’re having a creative block, you can get ideas by looking at magazines to see what they do in their headlines. Create a folder in your inbox and every time you see a great subject line that really gets your attention, put the email in that folder.
Here’s another tip: Keep your subject lines short, ideally seven words or fewer.
If you take the time to write strong subject lines, you will see a difference. Track your open rates, comparing them from before and after you used these tips, and see what happens. Higher open rates are coming your way soon!
Meredith Hill is founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs (GIFTE). GIFTE helps travel professionals monetize their passion for travel so they can go from surviving to thriving.
