Keir Starmer, going commando, around a street pole
The weird and the wonderful of email subject lines
Inspo for you this week.
I get bombarded with newsletters and outreach emails. Here’s a brief selection of the stuff I’ve had through this week.
Things I opened
The Knowledge - Come on Keir, you can afford your own clothes
The Square Ball - Bring back Matt Heath
Oddballs - Ever gone commando?
Glenn Fisher - This kebab is made of Shampoo
Copyranter - Street Pole Ads of Note
And things I didn’t
RightMessage - [RightMessage] Our plan for using AI to increase lead generation + con…
Warlord Games - Warlord App Details, & Much More
Northumberland Cheese - Join us in Celebrating Our Cheese Awards!
AdForum Top 5 - Top 5 Marketing Innovation: Xbox Fire Bloom Honey Lager, Nissan, Keep…
North Bar - All new North Bar, all new newsletter?
We Hate Movies - Mailbag for October
Spot any themes here?
Some should jump right out.
Say something weird - shampoo kebabs, re-hire a shit centre-half from 16 years ago, street pole ads - and you get opened.
Say something dull - app details, mailbag, all new newsletter - you get binned.
Focus on the reader - have you gone commando? - you get opened.
Focus on yourself - our plan, our cheese awards, our new app, our new bar - you get binned.
And go over the character limit - well an elipsis gets you right in the bin.
You still see advice about asking questions in subject lines, or focusing on the new. Warlord tried that. And North. Doesn’t matter. Their message wasn’t interesting and wasn’t about the reader.
The Knowledge asked a question - a weird, provocational one - it got read.
There’s no shortcut to great email content, but try and be a little bit interesting and you’ll see much better results.
Something mint - the case of the missing O
A couple weeks back, the Toronto Maple Leafs took all their Os out of various online logos. Nobody had a clue why.
Then they headed to Twitter - sorry, X - and posted this video.
Those Os? Oreos. New helmet sponsor. Something nobody on earth could possibly have cared about, now getting talked about on sports radio, podcasts, and marketing newsletters.
Dead simple campaign, got a lot of eyes on it, and brilliantly they now have a cookie brand on their helmets and milk on their jerseys. How’s that for synergy?