3 ways to low-key trick people into opening your emails
Okay so here’s the thing you have to understand about email marketing: It is a psychology game.
When you send a blast, you’re sending it to an inbox filled with hundreds of others just like it. And your subscribers aren’t waiting with bated breath. You’ve got about half a second to make an impression while they scroll, half interested, in the few moments between everything else they have to do that day.
You have to get in their heads. That’s the game.
And I love the game.
And I’m good at it. So good, in fact, clients send me messages like this:
So trust me when I say, if you’re looking to increase your email marketing open rate (without compromising your integrity), try these little, Content Writer approved tricks:
1. Break the pattern in your subscriber’s inbox
This is a screenshot of a tiny, tiny portion of my personal email inbox right now.
Now, these are all fine. No hate here. But they all look like marketing, right? They follow that ‘thing + description/CTA’ pattern. And our brain recognises patterns way, way quicker than we recognise individual lines in bulk.
So when we see "Weekly wine chats, weekly Tesco offers, this week’s top deals, book now, take part, final call etc etc.” we subconsciously log it as a whole lot of marketing and move on.
If you can break that pattern, you can draw attention to your email.
The goal is to do something that looks different to the rest. That doesn’t look like marketing.
Maybe it’s going way shorter than the standard. Sometimes it’s messing with grammar, or using all lowercase. Sometimes it’s being blunt, being funny, taking any CTAs out of your subject line. Anything that makes your email look unique.
This approach won’t be right for every brand. It’s not ‘best practice’. But if it breaks the pattern in an inbox, you’re way, way more likely to get that all-important open.
Monthly Newsletter: July Edition becomes big news ⬇️
Book now for England Vs Mexico becomes Wait, are you gonna be here??????
Take part in our survey and have your say becomes Sooooooooo, we need a favour 🙏🏻
2. Write like you’re starting a conversation
Humans are social creatures. We love a good conversation. And we're wired to be curious. Which is exactly why a subject line that sounds more conversational — like something somebody might actually say — is much harder to ignore than others.
Weekly Wine Chats becomes Ellen, which of these Pinots are calling to you? 🍷
This week’s top outlet deals becomes Thought you should know, this outlet piece just caused a warehouse riot
Explore new restaurants becomes What's for dinner tonight? 🌮🥢🍔🍕
The reason these work isn't because they're clickbait. It's because they sound like the beginning of a conversation rather than the beginning of a campaign.
So next time, don't use your subject line to explain the entire email. Use it to open a loop. Start the story. Ask the question. Share the first sentence. Give your reader just enough that they naturally want to know what comes next.
Invite them into the conversation.
3. Make it about them
Okay so let’s face it, we’re all super self-obsessed. But it’s not our fault. Our brains are naturally wired to pay more attention to things that feel personally relevant to us. Psychologists call it the self-reference effect.
That's why we instinctively look up when we hear our own name in a busy room, why our eyes go straight to our hometown on a map, and why everybody loved the whole ‘your name on a coke can’ thing from Coca Cola all those years ago.
And what this means for your email marketing campaigns is that, if something feels like it's about your reader personally, they’re much more likely to notice it.
Sometimes this is a first name in a subject line. But that’s entry level stuff. There are way more creative ways to make the email feel personally relevant.
Stay safe from scams this summer becomes Ellen, these scams are targeting accounts like yours
Your weekly Tesco offers are here becomes You bought [PRODUCT] 3 times last month, now it’s on sale
Your bonus birthday bottle becomes Happy Birthday Ellen! Here’s a present 🎁🍾
And a final tip…
Every email you send is training your audience what to expect from you.
If your subscribers open three of your emails in a row and every single one makes them laugh, teaches them something useful, takes them behind the scenes, shares an opinion they hadn't considered before or tells them something they couldn't have got anywhere else, they're much more likely to open the fourth.
It’s your job to reinforce the idea that your emails are worth opening by consistently delivering good stuff.
So yes, think about psychology. Think about subject lines. Think about getting the open. But don't let that become the whole strategy.
The best email marketing doesn't manipulate people into clicking. It just gives them a reason to want to. The fact that every time they opened one of your emails, they were glad they did.