Your subject line is landing your email in the trash.

@willtheemailguy

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Lavender

Lavender helps thousands of sellers around the world write better emails faster and get more positive replies in less time.

5 videos

Why it worked

The video provides high-value, counter-intuitive advice that challenges common marketing wisdom, establishing the creator as an expert while subtly positioning his product as the solution.

Summary

The creator explains why using first names and negative language in email subject lines hurts response rates. He advises keeping subject lines neutral and short to avoid being categorized as a sales message.

Structure

1Identify common subject line mistakes
2Explain why personalization and negative words trigger spam filters
3Define the two goals for effective subject lines
4Provide actionable advice on preview text and neutrality

Product placement

Original caption

Your subject line is landing your email in the trash 🗑️. Putting someone's first name in the subject line can reduce your chance of getting a response by about 20%. #emailmarketing #subjectlines #prospecting #coldemail

More from @willtheemailguy

On-screen text

Your subject line is landing your email in the trash 🗑️ Check out these two subject lines ☝️ [First Name], quick question for you. [First Name], are you struggling with (X)? Here's where both of those go terribly wrong 👇 📉 🤔 ⌨️ 2 things that I wanna focus on 🚨 ✌️ 📧 🤔

Transcript

Your subject line is landing your email in the trash. Check out these two subject lines: [First Name], quick question for you. [First Name], are you struggling with (X)? Here's where both of those go terribly wrong. First off, if you're including someone's first name in your subject line, you're reducing your chance of getting a response by about 20%. The negative language associated with "struggling"—people immediately pick up on these things. They're triggers that help them pre-categorize what the content of that email is going to be. If I send this to you, you kind of know it's a sales message. So instead, if I'm writing an email to somebody, there's 2 things that I wanna focus on. I want that subject line to not raise any alarm bells. I don't want it to be pre-categorized in any way shape or form. Second, I want the preview text to shine. That's the little start to your email that gets previewed just below the subject line. So if you're thinking about what the goal is for your subject line, keep it short, kind of keep it neutral. You don't want to use things like "struggling," and really just explain exactly what the email is about.