How to get 60%+ email opens by passing your prospect's mental spam filter

Plus: Critiquing a NURTURE email for the first time!

Hello Friends 👋

Hope everybody is having a wonderful weekend.

This week I’m sharing an e-mail critique that was sent over by Cynthia from Sama. Switching it up a little bit as this is a nurture email in a nurture sequence.

Week 13: Email Critique & Re-Write - Watch Video ← Click here to watch

If you’d like me to review your e-mail and break it down in a video, submit your e-mails to florin@thesalesflo.com (for premium subscribers only).

Now for this weeks topic: Getting past prospect’s mental spam filters

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Last week I missed an email from a prospect because the subject line was "Quick Question".

I don't even remember seeing the original email. Luckily they followed up and I apologized.

My brain doesn't even consciously register that subject line anymore. It's an automatic delete.

That's why it's so important that your subject line in a cold email is a pattern disruptor and get’s past your prospect’s mental spam filter.

So how do you actually do that?

Lavender just released some really interesting data on subject lines after analyzing 100 Million emails. Here’s some of the finds:

1. Emails that include numbers in the subject line get 46% fewer opens

This generally means that you should stay away from using things like percentages in your subject lines (i.e. 25% increase in pipeline)

It sounds like a marketing email.

2. Emails with 2 word subject lines get 65% more opens than ones with 5+ words

If you look through your inbox you will probably realize that most emails have 5-7 words in the subject line. In order to stick out keep it short and sweet

3. Emails with title case subject lines get 43% more opens than those with lower-case or mix

I was surprised by this one. I’ve been using all lower case to stick out for the last while. That being said there is an important lesson here:

If too many people start doing one thing, it get’s old and becomes a pattern.

It seems like now lowercase subject lines are hinting that it’s a sales email.

That’s why it’s important you always adapt and continue to A/B test

4. Emails with punctuation in subject lines get 36% fewer opens

Subject lines like “Tom - worried about downtime?” scream sales email.

Even putting a prospects name in the subject line has become so common that it is no longer a pattern interrupt.

How to build great subject lines:

Remember, the purpose of a subject line is to sound internal. It needs to sound like a colleague of theirs is sending them that email in order to pass the mental spam filter test

1. Use their colleagues / direct reports names