I was fooled by a headline

Every morning my email inbox has about 30 new bits of junk to delete. This morning I kept one and opened it because of the headline.

it read “New Beers for Chilly Evenings”.

I like beer so they got the target audience right, but I get loads of beer related emails and most get dumped before being read. Why did I read this one?

Well, it was the ‘chilly’ bit. This morning it is minus 2 degrees outside and I am indeed a bit chilly. So, however obliquely they were offering me a potential solution to today’s problem.

Now, I am not planning to drink any beer this morning but it got me thinking about the timing of emails and how we can use what we know about WHEN the email headline will be glanced at to craft a message to fit the readers circumstances. Try to envisage the reader’s immediate problem and try to offer a solution.

Perhaps we can consider sending differently titled emails morning and evening? Perhaps different titles at the beginning or end of the working week?

And then of course, A/B split testing will show if we successfully got into the mind of our reader like the beer people did with me this morning.