Jay Schwedelson: We are back for Do This Not That podcast, and today I wanted to do a new, all new ultimate email subject line test ideas because everyone thinks their email subject lines, you've tried it all. You're a business marketer, consumer, nonprofit. You've done it all, and you can't get your emails to work, but there's always new tactics to try.

Jay Schwedelson: And I have a research group called Worldata Research, and we execute over forty thousand campaigns annually and over six billion emails that we send out, and we're always trying new stuff. So I'm not gonna share with you stuff you already know like urgency or making your subject line a question. That, that's boring.

Jay Schwedelson: Everybody knows that stuff. I wanna share stuff with you that maybe you haven't tried, and these are not gonna all work, but they're easy tests. I don't care how big or small your brand is. This is easy stuff that you can test and some things that I thought were used to be terrible and that we retested are actually working really well right now, which is always the case in marketing.

Jay Schwedelson: You gotta always go back and retest. So I'm gonna rip through some different test ideas. This is a horrible way to do a podcast 'cause you're out walking or driving. You're like, "Well, what am I gonna do with this? I'm gonna have to re-listen to this garbage?" I don't know. Maybe you'll remember one of them.

Jay Schwedelson: What can I tell you? Um, and at the end, I'll share with you nonsense that's going on in my life 'cause that's what I do. All right. So the first test that really was surprising to us is having your subject line look like a calendar invite. This is crushing it. In our research, it's actually lifting open rates twenty-eight percent.

Jay Schwedelson: So what does that look like in your subject line? The subject line would literally say, you know, Thursday, two fifteen PM, or it would say eleven, uh, tomorrow, eleven AM. And this might be the date that you're releasing a new guide. This might be the date that you're releasing, announcing a new sale going live on the consumer side or donation things being open or a webinar, uh, event that's gonna happen.

Jay Schwedelson: But literally, all you're putting is tomorrow, eleven AM or Thursday, two fifteen PM. The person opens it up 'cause they think, "Oh, wait a minute. I'm supposed to be there," and it works really, really well. Now, there's a tactic that I used to hate, but now I'm doing again and it's crushing it. So if you send out an email newsletter, back in the day, it used to be that all the email newsletters that were sent out, at the start of their subject line you would have, in brackets, um, you would have the edition.

Jay Schwedelson: So it might say, like, my newsletter is called Scoop. Back in the day, five years ago, it might have bracket the word Scoop and then number twenty-two and then close bracket. And then you'd have your subject line after that. And that used to be what all the newsletters did. And that became wallpaper, and it started doing terrible.

Jay Schwedelson: And so everybody stopped doing it with their email newsletters. Well, I'm here to report that tactic is now crushing it again. And by the way, you could put brackets in your subject line, exclamation marks, capitalized letters, words, emojis, uh, dollar signs. You're not going to the junk folder or spam folder for any of that.

Jay Schwedelson: That has nothing to do with the reason you go to the junk folder or spam folder anymore. So when I tell you for your newsletter, like in my newsletter, for example We switch from the regular just write something crazy subject line to starting the subject line with a bracket, then we put the name of the newsletter, then we put the number sign, and then we put the, the number, like 212, and then we close the bracket, and then we put a subject line after that.

Jay Schwedelson: It is lifting our email open rates on our newsletters over 20%. Ann Handley does this with her newsletter as well now, and a lot of other folks is, do it, uh, uh, uh, with all their newsletters. So if you haven't tried that with your newsletter, it's a tactic we used to avoid, but it has come back in a big way in the last six months.

Jay Schwedelson: So another one that we've been testing that's working phenomenal is starting your subject lines with a conjunction. So literally starting your subject line with, 'And then this happened.' Or you would say, 'But here's the problem.' And I don't care if you're a business marketer, consumer marketer, non-profit, if you're a conservative industry, a, a regulated industry, something boring.

Jay Schwedelson: You can start your subject line with, "And then this happened." You're creating that different kind of curiosity, and from our research group, we're seeing this lift open rates by about 17%. All right, my other favorite one right now is adding a period after every word. So for example, you might say something like this period changes period everything period.

Jay Schwedelson: 'Cause when you see that in your mind instantly, even though it's in your subconscious, it creates drama, right? And this weird pacing when you're reading it. That tactic alone is actually lifting open rates by about 24%. So if you've never tried a period, um, and, and then you do a space in between each word, then you are leaving one of the coolest tactics out there that you can try.

Jay Schwedelson: The other super random one that I love that we've been doing forever is that two weeks before the next month, you put the next month in the subject line. So for example, let's say it's June 15th, you would put in the subject line, uh, July is going to be really huge, or, uh, July's webinar is gonna be amazing, or July sale starts now.

Jay Schwedelson: When you mention the next month, two weeks prior to that month starting, for some reason people get a little excited about it 'cause they're like, "Ooh, I'm gonna be ahead of the game," and that lifts open rates by about 14% from what we're seeing. The last one before I get into ridiculous nonsense is double spacing.

Jay Schwedelson: This one's really visually a little bit about creating a little white space and people don't even realize it and why they're opening it, and this one lifts open rates by about 10 to 12%. But literally between each word in your subject line, you put two spaces instead of one, and oddly it actually works.

Jay Schwedelson: Uh, again, no one's gonna look at your subject line and be like, "Oh my God, that's amazing. I see two spaces." But it, it visually catches their eye for a split second. So again, these are all little things that you can try that kinda mix it up a little bit, and that's what you wanna do. You always wanna mix it up a little bit.

Jay Schwedelson: So let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast called Since You Didn't Ask. So I just talked really fast. Wow, I just talked really fast. And I stopped drinking coffee, so this is me without coffee. But that's not my topic. So I'm curious about something if everyone else feels this way, the way that I feel, which is I was at, uh, this small industry conference, uh, in the last week, and it was down here in South Florida where I live, and it was at this hotel, and the hotel had a pool.

Jay Schwedelson: And so, uh, in between like the sessions and stuff and at the end of the day after the sessions broke, there was a, a significant number of people from the event that were at the swimming pool of the hotel where the event was. It was a multi-day event And so I, I walked outside to see what was going on, and there were all these people that before, like an hour or two before, I saw them in the sessions.

Jay Schwedelson: I saw a couple speakers. Uh, but they were in their bathing suits, and they were in the water, and they were sitting on lounge chairs. And I was totally not into it. And everyone's like, "Hey, Jay, what's going on?" I don't know why, I don't know what this means about me, but I don't wanna see people that I do any kind of work with or, or anything to do with my industry in bathing suits.

Jay Schwedelson: Um, I will not be in a bathing suit at an industry event. I don't know why it's weird. It's like I don't wanna see a dude with no shirt on, then the next day I have to interact with him, or I don't wanna see a woman in a f-- in a ba- I don't know. What does that mean? I don't know why that's a problem for me.

Jay Schwedelson: I was so uncomfortable 'cause one of the dudes was trying to have a real conversation with me. He had no shirt on. He had very short bathing suit on, uh, shorts. And I'm like, "I don't wanna be in this discussion." I felt weird. I don't know. And then the other one, which wasn't at this event, but I've seen at other events, and I know this is really bad 'cause a lot of people like to do this, but at like nighttime, there'll be like a bar, like an event at a bar, like a cocktail reception, and then there'll be music, and then people will dance.

Jay Schwedelson: And I don't know what it is, but I don't wanna see people that I do work with dancing. Like, I don't wanna see my clients dancing. I'm definitely not dancing. I don't wanna see other people in the industry dancing. I know that's terrible, but why do I feel like there are certain activities that shouldn't be done with work people?

Jay Schwedelson: Dancing, swimming pool. What else? I don't know. Yoga? I have no idea. But let's not... Well, maybe, maybe you like this stuff. I mean, it's probably a me thing. Everything is a me thing. But, but if you see me and you're in a bathing suit, please don't come near me. I don't wanna interact with you. I don't care if you have like, you're like have a six-pack.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't care. It's not about that. It's just weird. Am I weird? Probably. Anyway, thanks for being here. Leave this thing a review, please. It helps to circulate the show and, um, what else? I don't know. Don't... Wear a full, full outfit if you're gonna be by the pool. I don't know. Do something. Later.

One note on the cleanup: the only entity correction was "World Data Research," which I changed to "Worldata Research" (his actual research division). Everything else, including filler, false starts, and "Scoop" and "Ann Handley," was already accurate and left fully verbatim.