Marketing folks know this: you must present your target audience with something so interesting, so compelling, so curious that they stop doing what they are doing and go look at your stuff instead. This thing that they present to you is called a hook.
Hooks come in various forms. Think about going to a trade show or vendor area at a fair. What makes you stop and look at their booth? Maybe the hook is a large graphic, free swag, or a person pitching the wonders of their product while demonstrating it at the same time (Sham-Wow anyone??).
Think about any social media platform you are on. What makes you stop scrolling? A picture? A video? A line of text? Something – the hook – makes you stop scrolling and take a look.
Now think about your home inbox. What makes you click on an email and open it? The hook could be who it is from. There are particular people, companies, or organizations whose email you will always open. The hook is often the subject line.
I must admit, I get sucked into the emails from Apartment Therapy, a home and décor site, a lot. Check out these subject lines:
“The 52 Best Kitchen Cabinet Organization Ideas of All Time”
“6 Things to Know Before You Buy a Home”
“All the Best Home Sales to Shop This Holiday Weekend”
“7 Decorating Mistakes That Are Making Your Home Look Smaller”
As someone who likes to decorate (or at least think a lot about decorating), is budget-aware, and wants my home to be inviting, these headlines draw me in. These subject lines create curiosity and are pertinent to my interests.
To compare and contrast, consider these subject lines from the for sale section in craigslist:
- Bird Picture (no picture attached)
- Buck the singing deer (picture of wall-mounted deer head)
- Office art (at least there’s a picture with this one)
- Floor mats (picture of 4 floor mats with no other context)
Out of these, which is going to make you stop and take a look? Buck the singing deer for me! Do I need a singing deer (head)? Heck no. But I’m curious what Buck sings. And why Buck the singing deer is going for $200*.
What does a hook have to do with working more effectively?
Think about all the emails in your inbox at work. Do you look at every single one? Zero inbox? Hahahahahaha. No way. I get a lot of automated emails from various tools and I read the ones where the subject line seems pertinent. I receive meeting notes. If I attended the meeting I might scan it if the subject line catches my attention. I usually open the ones “from” the CEO. And once I actually got an email from the CEO that was to me personally (well, it was to one other guy too but it was still to me…and I definitely opened that one).
Here’s how we apply the marketers secret that you need a hook to stop people from doing what they are doing to take a look at your stuff: make your email subject lines pertinent, interesting, curious or nutshell descriptive.
For example:
| This Subject Line | Not This |
| Action Items Due for Wednesday’s Meeting | meeting agenda |
| 6 Things You Need To Know From Today’s Conference Call | conference call notes |
| Can you send me a copy of the TPS report? | When you get a sec, I have a quick question for you |
Give it a try! See if you get more engagement and response when the subject line is hook-worthy. We can all be more effective when people actually read the important information we have in our emails.
engineer your life
- Look to your home email inbox for subject line inspiration. What are you clicking on? What about the subject line grabbed your attention?
- Give it a try! See if you notice any increase in effectiveness when you use a hook for your subject line.
*Apparently Buck the Singing Deer doesn’t actually sing himself. There is a cordless microphone and as you sing Buck moves his lips and twitches his ears. And all of this for only $200!! (…no, looks like I still don’t need a singing deer head.)