Spam Trigger Words

I randomly came across this list of words. They should never grace your email subject lines. Apparently, their presence denotes spam. This naturally got me thinking. How many times do we send a mail to a prospect that feature these kinds of phrases? Here’s a few that stood out for me straight away;

• 50% off
• Info you requested
• Guarantee
• Solution
• $$$
• Best price
• Double your
• Discount
• Cheap
• Free

Of course, I realise these are not staples of our everyday emails, campaign by campaign. Yet these kinds of empty phrases can creep in.

It also struck me that lately one of the winning salesteams I’ve worked with demonstrate a notable trait. All their senior, C-level execs write with stark brevity. Each email I receive is practically just a tweet in length.

I’ve noticed his before. There seems to be an unwritten status rule. The higher up the food chain you are, the less you can get away with writing.

When I craft an email, I am conscious of the need to get my point across in the most concise fashion. Yet if a particular aspect warrants deeper articulation, I will produce the necessary.

One answer I have noted I deploy recently is writing my message as a sentence in the subject line, typically with any attachment standing alone underneath. In fact, I have received much ribbing about my affection for pictures-with-words as a result!

Still, some of the above words really ought be eliminated from the subject-line vocab. Anything that doesn’t specifically and directly address the ‘problem’ the prospect has should definitely be avoided.

For instance, rather than the banal info as requested, try lines like

Ideas for building upon [issue]

Background about rectifying the [situation]

Where to move next for [nirvana]

How [utopia] might look

Any others?