Podcast 59: writing email subject lines, B2B InTech 2018

Here’s a simple fact. Your B2B marketing email can be as good as you want, and if your subject line’s no good, nobody will read it.

But here’s where things get really meta… even if your subject line is brilliant, two thirds of your audience are still not going to open your email. That means, most of the time, the subject line and preview text is the only part that will reliably get read.

We tend to think of subject lines as a functional thing, just to get the email opened. But more often than not, they’re all the copy you’ve got.

In this episode of Good Copy, Bad Copy: The B2B Copywriting Podcast, we’re joined by senior copywriter and content lead Steve George, who’ll share:

• His five go-to approaches for B2B email subject lines
• How mobile usage is affecting subject line copywriting (in more ways than you think)
• Why we might need to think differently about what a subject line is for
• Whether his choice of hat makes a difference to voice and tone

You can also hear our special report from B2B InTech 2018, where we’ll recap favourite sessions, and talk to senior tech marketers, like Scott Stockwell of IBM’s Watson IoT and Malin Liden from SAP, about what they got out of the day.

Want to contact the show?

We want to hear from you. You’ll find us on Twitter… or feel free to send your thoughts, jokes, questions, suggestions, complaints or hat recommendations to [email protected] (better still, email us a voice memo).

Next month, we’ll be talking about what you can expect from a messaging workshop, and inducting the first member to our B2B Content Hall of Fame. 

Ways to listen…

You can download the episode here (right-click and “save-as” to download). Or stream the episode in the player at the top of the page.

(Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.)

Credits:

Thanks to Scott Stockwell, Sinead, Lukas, Laura Sutton, Malin Liden and Alysha Ferris for allowing David to interrupt your day, and speaking with such clarity.

Audio editing and music by Bang and Smash.