Pop quiz:
What do the following headlines all have in common?
1. How did cool become such a big deal?
2. Why it’s hard to sound like Jimi Hendrix
3. A comprehensive guide to yellow stripey things
4. Why whales got so big
(The third one, by the way, was for an infographic on the differences between wasps, bees, yellow jackets, hoverflies and dirt daubers.)
Think you have it?
Ok, let’s compare answers. Here’s what I had in mind:
Each of these headlines promises to explain a part of your world that is so obvious that it’s actually not understood. Something you’re well aware of, but you’d never really thought about before. Something that gets you saying, “Yeah, that’s right! Why is that?”
These kinds of topics can easily be modeled to write interesting emails. For example, applying them to various health markets, we get:
1. How did essential oils suddenly become such a big deal?
2. Why it’s hard to avoid belly fat past 35
3. A comprehensive guide to different types of erectile dysfunction
4. Why your joints don’t self-repair like other tissue
(Health markets are in fact a very good match for this kind of topic. We all have a lot of experience with our bodies, and yet much about them remains a mystery.)
In short: find something omnipresent but still unexplained (at least to non-specialists). Put it in your subject line, and then write a short email surprising people and opening their eyes with the answer. And then, tie this into whatever you’re selling.
Easy.
Peasy.
By the weasel, this is one of about two dozen email topic ideas I will be sharing in my upcoming book about email marketing for health products.
If you want to find out what the other ones are (they’re very exciting), you’ll need to read the book. You can sign up here to get it when it comes out: