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A subject-line solution

September 14, 2015 By scottbowen

In recent times, I’ve been editing/rewriting a lot of business e-mails, and writing a lot of original subject lines that seek to do one thing: get the click to open the message.

I also receive a lot of promotional and commercial e-mails, and I don’t see a lot of subject lines that make me want to reach out and make billions more electrons flow.

A still from a recent example of light writing...

A still from a recent example of light writing with a human subject in frame. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Face it: we’re all jaded about e-mail subject lines. So every week I wonder, What the hell can I write?

I’ve concluded that if you want people to click the e-mail, you at least have to make them feel like they’re not doing this alone. You have to make them feel that they’ll have an instant guide who will navigate the pending experience with them.

For good or ill, I’ve settled on a temporary solution: I start the subject line with “Let’s.”

It suggests freedom of choice, but with some focus. It also implies some support: the people approaching the customer are interested in helping him or her find what he or she wants, while the recipient can assert every individual taste.

Then the rest of the subject line is on-topic (product, service, whatever): “Let’s turn heads” (fashion). “Let’s climb the mountain” (outdoors equipment). “Let’s do a burn-out” (automotive after-market).

This isn’t a perfect solution, but it has some positives: 1. The word count stays low for mobile-device screens. 2. It’s inviting, and slightly inspiring. 3. It’s on-topic, but leaves a little bit unexplained, and the curious reader/customer is a good one.

Let’s try it.

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Filed Under: SB Blog Tagged With: Advertising mail, B2B, B2C, business writing, Computer-mediated communication, e-mail, e-mailing, mobile device, on-line shopping, shopping, social media, subject lines, touch-screens

Cutting the clutter of your clichés

September 11, 2015 By scottbowen

Imagine if everyone decided to pick one cliché a week and do his or her utmost to banish it from personal usage.

Some of us will have much more work to do than others. We won’t eliminate all clichés, and other, not-yet-known clichés will take the ranks of the departed.* But, like donating a t-shirt emblazoned with some catchphrase or symbol you don’t truly believe, every time you banish a cliché, you purge unnecessary crap from your own life.

This effort needs no title or slogan—it’s just a regular personal practice, intellectual good hygiene.

To start, I’ll pick the one cliché I currently despise the most: “No worries.”

"No worries" text, on the cover of a...

“No worries” text, on the cover of a spare tire on the back of an automobile in Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

A single Australian is the source of this expression as used in American speech: the fictional Crocodile Dundee, played by actor Paul Hogan.

Before 1986, nobody in America said, “No worries.” We said, “That’s o.k.,” “No problem,” or “Sure thing” when we should have said, “You’re welcome.”

Then came the first eponymous Crocodile Dundee movie, and everybody soon had a case of the no-worries.

“No worries” gave us another way to avoid the decency and simplicity of “You’re welcome,” while at the same time allowing us to impart an even greater breeziness.

In America in late 2015, if you’ve paid off the mortgage and have, say, $5M in the bank, and your family members are all healthy, you probably have no major worries. The rest of us have some worries, large or small.

“No worries” on its face is a lie, and, frankly, sounds stupid.

I might have spoken this cliché maybe a dozen times in my life, but I’m guilty of using it in e-mails. No more.

No worries.

 

*That’s the other half of the fight: resisting the new cliché. There was a time when expressions such as “Take it to the next level,” “Do more with less,” and “Move the needle” didn’t exist.

 

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Filed Under: SB Blog Tagged With: American English, B2B, B2C, cliches, clutter, Crocodile Dundee, English language, marketing, No worries

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