The 4 Words That Will Get Your Email Opened

“You Are Not Alone”
In two and a half years of sending all kinds of emails
to all kinds of lists, the simple phrase...

 “You Are Not Alone”

 is the most-opened subject line I’ve ever seen — by far.

Because Aweber counts each email that’s been opened, even if they’re from the same user, that single subject line has had an average open rate of 90%, and has surpassed the 100% mark several times.
I’ve seen this subject line used successfully on emails ranging from content marketing to personal development to potty training, with a dozen verticals in between.
The results are always the same.
I don’t want to be alone is a compelling, universally recognized statement.
The need to belong, to know that others are going through the same life experiences, is primal.
Sure, there are plenty of ways to appeal to our primitive human needs in an email subject line, but many can (and will) send your message directly to the spam folder.
Let me show you how to avoid that …

Let your reader know someone is on their side

No matter what message you’re sending or service you’re selling, if you remind your reader that someone understands what they are going through and cares about helping them, you will become their temporary hero.
Do it repeatedly, and you will permanently solidify that position.
Use this subject line to get your email opened, but treat the open as just the first step. Once you capture your reader’s attention, prove that you deserved it by providing a useful solution to their most pressing problem.
Even the most effective subject line in the world merely gets you in the door. Your job is to address the issues.
Your subject line is an invitation to dinner; you still have to cook the main course.
Not only does the “You Are Not Alone” subject line get opened like crazy, it has an extremely high reply rate. This isn’t too surprising since it responds directly to the need for community and connection.
Make sure you reply back. It’s amazing how directly responding to the needs of your reader makes it A-B-C easy to nurture rewarding relationships.
Help people solve their problems and relieve them of their feelings of isolation, and they will reward you.

Figuring out what kind of reassurance your audience needs

The “You Are Not Alone” subject line works because it connects to an elemental human need — and the good news is, the well of human need is bottomless.
Respond to a single need or to more, but you must provide what people truly desire if you expect to reach the root of who they are.
Discover this and everything else becomes easy; growing your list, nurturing your relationships, and, ultimately, closing the deal.
You could read Robert Cialdini’s book Influence for easily accessible insight into what makes us all tick, but believe it or not, it’s easier than that.
To discover the core desires of your audience — think about what keeps you up at night.
What makes you worried, happy, sad, disgusted, afraid, surprised, or alone?
If you’re a part of your market, what’s true for you is likely true for them. Figure out what it is and you’ll be jingling the keys to the kingdom.

Bonus tip — negativity sells

People will always work harder to keep something they have rather than try to gain something that they want — even if they desperately want it.
Negative headlines and copy alert your audience to a potentially serious problem — which you can then address and solve. By helping people keep something important to them, you’ve also gained trust.
Be helpful, solve a problem, take a worry and turn it into a smile. You’ll get your email opened, make a friend, and nurture a relationship that will pay dividends for a long time to come.
Even better, you (and your business) will never be alone again

Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb

One thing blogging and good copywriting share is a conversational style, and that means it’s fine to fracture the occasional rule of proper grammar in order to communicate effectively. Both bloggers and copywriters routinely end sentences with prepositions, dangle a modifier in a purely technical sense, or make liberal use of the ellipsis when an EM dash is the correct choice—all in order to write in the way people actually speak.
But there are other mistakes that can detract from your credibility. While we all hope what we have to say is more important than some silly grammatical error, the truth is some people will not subscribe or link to your blog if you make dumb mistakes when you write, and buying from you will be out of the question.
Here are five mistakes to avoid when blogging and writing web copy.

1. Your vs. You’re

This one drives me insane, and it’s become extremely common among bloggers. All it takes to avoid this error is to take a second and think about what you’re trying to say.
“Your” is a possessive pronoun, as in “your car” or “your blog.” “You’re” is a contraction for “you are,” as in “you’re screwing up your writing by using your when you really mean you are.”

2. It’s vs. Its

This is another common mistake. It’s also easily avoided by thinking through what you’re trying to say.
“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” “Its” is a possessive pronoun, as in “this blog has lost its mojo.” Here’s an easy rule of thumb—repeat your sentence out loud using “it is” instead. If that sounds goofy, “its” is likely the correct choice.

3. There vs. Their

This one seems to trip up everyone occasionally, often as a pure typo. Make sure to watch for it when you proofread.
“There” is used many ways, including as a reference to a place (“let’s go there”) or as a pronoun (“there is no hope”). “Their” is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.” Always do the “that’s ours!” test—are you talking about more than one person and something that they possess? If so, “their” will get you there.

4. Affect vs. Effect

To this day I have to pause and mentally sort this one out in order to get it right. As with any of the other common mistakes people make when writing, it’s taking that moment to get it right that makes the difference.
“Affect” is a verb, as in “Your ability to communicate clearly will affect your income immensely.” “Effect” is a noun, as in “The effect of a parent’s low income on a child’s future is well documented.” By thinking in terms of “the effect,” you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t stick a “the” in front of a verb. While some people do use “effect” as a verb (“a strategy to effect a settlement”), they are usually lawyers, and you should therefore ignore them if you want to write like a human.

5. The Dangling Participle

The dangling participle may be the most egregious of the most common writing mistakes. Not only will this error damage the flow of your writing, it can also make it impossible for someone to understand what you’re trying to say.
Check out these two examples from Tom Sant’s book Persuasive Business Proposals:
After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.
Uhh… keep your decomposing brother away from me!
Featuring plug-in circuit boards, we can strongly endorse this server’s flexibility and growth potential.
Hmmm… robotic copy written by people embedded with circuit boards. Makes sense.
The problem with both of the above is that the participial phrase that begins the sentence is not intended to modify what follows next in the sentence. However, readers mentally expect it to work that way, so your opening phrase should always modify what immediately follows. If it doesn’t, you’ve left the participle dangling, as well as your readers.
P.S. You may find it amusing to know that I, like David Ogilvy, have never learned the formal rules of grammar. I learned to write by reading obsessively at an early age, but when it came time to learn the “rules,” I tuned out. If you show me an incorrect sentence, I can fix it, but if I need to know the technical reason why it was wrong in the first place, I go ask my wife.

Bob Proctor on "The terror barrier"