What Lowlife Spammers Can Teach You About Headlines
January 9th, 2008, by Michael StelznerGot spam? Those never-ending messages seem to arrive in my in-box a lot.
Despite the fact that spammers are evil, we can learn a lot about getting attention by examining their tactics.
The fact is these guys actually are successful or we would not see more and more of their messages bombarding us.
Their magic weapon is the subject line. More specifically, a compelling headline that gets us to act, namely open the email.
Michel Fortin (a master copywriter) recently dissected spammer headline tactics. You can learn A LOT by taking a close look at what follows.
1. Imply a sense of urgency
Some of the most profitable email campaigns have subject lines that have some element of scarcity. You see this with subject lines like, “It ends tonight at midnight!”, “There are only 4 left”, “One spot just opened up”, etc.
But don’t just limit yourself to an event. You can also use situations to communicate fear of loss, which inherently creates tension. For example:
- “When she learned my secrets…”
- “Unless you do this, you are lost!”
- “The sneaky mind trick they use on you”
- “You are losing money right now!”
2. Push the curiosity button
For example, the subject line starts with “It all started when…” and in the body of the email, it goes on with “… She told me about this website!” The subject says “I’ve never had a chance to…” followed in the email by “… tell you about this amazing secret!” Or the subject says “Don’t leave me…” continued with “… hanging by not responding to this offer.” You get the picture.
The best curiosity subject lines are those that really tease not by omission but by implication. In fact, one curiosity-building tactic that works quite well is to tempt an open by implying that the answer to a question is within your email.
- “The real reason people gain weight”
- “No joke! Shocking study proves laughter is dangerous”
- “Is he cheating? Find out with these 6 tell-tale tips”
3. Spark controversy
The word “controversial,” by definition, means “of a diverging viewpoint,” “opinionated,” “disputed,” “arguable,” “contentious,” etc. Being controversial simply means to be different.
Take a look at some of Michel’s headlines that spark controversy:
What are some other lessons spammers can teach us? Do you have any other strategies that you have employed to improve open rates?
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading …
If you're new here, be sure to signup for my newsletter and join 20,000 others. Thanks for visiting!
Receive email updates when new articles are posted.>> Related Articles on This Blog
January 9th, 2008 at 8:24 am
To be honest, I think most spam is terribly written. There are occasionally entertaining headlines, but most have to do with body parts.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:55 am
@John:
Agreed, 100%.
But I think that we can learn a thing or two from these criminals and apply them, in honest ways, with our legitimate businesses.
Body parts excluded.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Had a look at my deleted folder and although most of it is complete gibberish, there are some in there that are pretty good. Just wish they didn’t send them to me!!
January 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Hey Michel;
Thanks for stopping by!
Please keep up the excellent work.
Looking forward to our class on writing headlines!
It will be a hoot!
Mike
January 9th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Likewise. It’s going to be fun! And thanks for the mention on your blog.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Wow, you have some pretty high-class spammers, if that’s the sort of spam you’re getting. My blog fills up daily with crap that is a thousand links long about sexual aids, cheap drugs and free porn.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Hm, as an afterthought… I wonder what makes spammers think I need help with sex, drugs and more sex?
January 10th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Hey Michael,
I respectfully disagree with the premise of your article - that spammers are successful. Successful enough for their own purposes, yes, but not by any standard that you or I or any reasonable marketer would use. The typical spammer is sending millions of e-mails at virtually no cost and needs only the barest fraction of a response to make it worth his/her while. On a percentage basis, what most spammers consider success would be abject failure for most marketers. Having said that - yes, I agree: from a “best practices” perspective, there’s “good” spam and “bad” spam, but frankly - I’ll learn my lessons elsewhere!
Cheers, Howard
January 10th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Howard - Thanks for your opinions. We can always learn something, even from evil people.
- Mike
January 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I read the excerpt from your book… Writing White Papers. Very fascinating! How is the book doing, by the way?
I like your blog too! Great post about the things we can learn from spammers. It’s true, there are some great marketing tactics there…
January 14th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I think these spammers are searching for the 1:100000000 person who responds. I usually think the ones that get through my filters are pretty funny. The ones that really work (on me) are the ones that might possibly be from somebody I know with a new email address.
“Do you remember that day in August when I told you I was quitting…”
I like the point about controversy. I think it was James Rausch I read had said, “If you aren’t getting death threats, you aren’t doing enough.” Like how the carny workers insult you to get you to come and play their games…
February 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think the important thing here is: Who is your audience? My highly technical audience have kitsch radar that weeds out anything but the terms that mean something to them. And you can’t fool someone who’s considering buying a million-dollar automation system for a refinery with “controversy” or fear appeals. Ain’t happenin’. Our product data sheets and white papers are the most frequently downloaded sales aids, at thousands of hits a day, and if they don’t deliver what’s been googled, from the headline through the specs, we lose.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
updatedfreeporn.com’s multi award winning adult site offers daily & weekly updated free porn for every niche & desire.free porn pics,free porn videos,free …
February 27th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Howard: Don’t forget the joke about email spam being “so cheap to make and deliver that a vanishingly small return rate is sufficient to underwrite the project.” The tough part’s really the distribution. A marketing project’s success is determined by ROI, like anything else, and while the conversion rates are low, the distribution figures are staggering. Why is conversion rate alone enough to call it unsuccessful?
You’re right that the subject is important. The times when I’ve been drawn to click most have been the coincidental name guesses they happen to get exactly right, which is really a product of the numbers game of it all, as usual.
March 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
definitely.. also when the “spam” is targeted, and sometimes the message is even interesting and usefull, can we really call it spam ? i mean those “spammers” are using sophisticated softwares to harvest “extremely targeted” emails and then send “extremely targeted” emails and offers. believe it or not sometimes u get something interesting from those “spammers”
Another thing that i learned from studying hundred of spammers emails, is how to bypass the spam filters when i want to send a legit newsletter to all my subscribers. so yeah you can learn from the “bad” people too .