Why this matters

Subject lines are the cheapest thing in marketing to test and the most commonly written in ten seconds flat.

The 20-minute experiment

1. 1Take one email you're actually about to send and paste its opening paragraph in
2. 2Ask for ten subject lines across different angles: curiosity, benefit, plain, urgent, odd
3. 3Pick one. Then write one sentence on why each of the other nine failed
4. 4Send it, and note the open rate against your usual

Here is the email. Write ten subject lines under eight words each, across different angles. Label the angle for each one.

• Real email pasted in
• Ten lines generated with labelled angles
• One chosen and nine reasons written
• Sent, with the open rate noted for comparison