What is a good subject line?

[Candace Gill]

I have devoured everything I could on joint ventures, but every last piece of information skips over how to present the joint venture request via the subject line.
When I send out my joint venture requests, I always seem to think that my subject line doesn't read correctly.
I don't want my subject line to be read as a sales pitch and be immediately deleted.
So how do you successful convey that you are offering a joint venture without the hype?

I'm loving all the information found here by the way :)
Mike, your website is so resourceful, I'm glad I found my way here :)
Thanks,
Candace

[Sam Heyer]

Hey Candace,

It's nice to see someone more my age in here :-)

A good subject line is one that gets opened... that sounds obvious, but I'll explain a few things about getting them opened...

First you have to understand that marketers are getting JV proposals many times a day... what is going to make yours different?

Don't tell them in your subject line that it's a JV... why not try something as simple as "Hi Candace, please read" or "Hi Candace, did you get this?"

Something that keeps people wondering will get it opened... that curiosity factor is called the Zeigarnik effect and basically means that people can't stand to have questions left unanswered.

And many people won't read an email the first time they get it... but if they keep seeing it over and over and over again they will eventually open it. And keep writing them emails, sending them letters via mail, calling them, and faxing them until you they say "Yes" or "No" ...

More than anything, make sure you have a well planned out JV offer for them.

Hope that helps,
Sam

[Candace Gill]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your advice, I will try the simple Zeigarnik approach. I was making the mistake of including JV in the subject line, although the emails were getting read and some JV's did come about, but I really like making them curious about my offering.

You are right, it is always nice to see other young motivated entrepreneurs :-)

I must say, I am very impressed, I downloaded your Business Sexcess e-book and audios, and you had me intrigued :-)
The sales copy was phenomenal, and I love that I can listen to the audios and continue to work.
The information is priceless, and I really like how it has a nice little twist.

Awesome Job!

Thanks again,
Candace

[Sam Heyer]

Thanks Candice!

My business partner and I worked on that for a few months last year while we were slacking off and enjoying business a little too much... we haven't done much to market it in a long time, but hope to get around to it one of these days (years)...

Anyways, glad you enjoyed it... we have yet to come across someone who hasn't enjoyed it (honestly)... and it's the only product we've ever created that's NEVER had a refund (long story short, we use to sell it, but decided to give it away after a few months... for a reason I can't remember lol).

Good luck and let me know if there's ever anything I can give you a hand with.

Talk soon,
Sam

[Scott Logan]

Hello Sam and Candice

I am new to the forum here but thought I would like to contribute to this post

So if you say a subject line that read:

' where can I send your check ' or something along those lines

Chances are you email will get looked at.

Perhaps first thoughts might be 'spam' but I bet curiosity would get the best of them

Then starting out the actual letter with a compliment to boost ego and then...

Well you probably no the rest since you are already doing some JV's

Just think about it for a moment would you delete that email with a subject
line like that. ' where can I send your check '

Wouldn't you get just a little bit interested to see what it's all about

Give it a try. The best thing to do is try several different subject lines

So if you have say 50 partners you are going to email line up 10 different
suject lines or even 5 and see which get the best responses.

Right your results down for future reference then try and beat your
most responsive subject line.

Just my thoughts.

Sincerely,
Scott Logan
Night Owl Marketing

[Jeffrey Neil]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your advice, I will try the simple Zeigarnik approach. I was making the mistake of including JV in the subject line, although the emails were getting read and some JV's did come about, but I really like making them curious about my offering.

You are right, it is always nice to see other young motivated entrepreneurs :-)

I must say, I am very impressed, I downloaded your Business Sexcess e-book and audios, and you had me intrigued :-)
The sales copy was phenomenal, and I love that I can listen to the audios and continue to work.
The information is priceless, and I really like how it has a nice little twist.

Awesome Job!

Thanks again,
Candace




Candace

I had originally wrote you a long reply talking about the Zeigarnik effect and about some examples from mark joyner from years past, and how I first heard this term from him years ago in a product he produced. Unforunately the board seems to secretly hate me and logged me out when I went to post the message, so lost all that was written. :)

The bottom line is this. Godfather of marketing Mark Joyner's testing, as well as from many of us that have followed has demonstrated 2 things. Curiousity does work great, but it will only pull the results you want if the Zeigarnik effect is properly used.

Just because you got your prospect to open your email doesn't mean that they will be responsive to it, even if they have the potential to be responsive. You do want to have them in the right mindset and not "fool" them into opening your message.

A great example Mark Joyner provided was this. He sent out an email with a great heading of "Name, This is barely legal...". He actually DID get a great -response- in clickthroughs but not particularly great conversions into action on his offer. He attributed this to the fact that hey were not in the right mindset from the beginning of opening the message.

The lesson here is that there may be a way to use the Zeigarnik effect, but still remain focused towards your target audience. In your case meaning you don't necessarily need to be afraid of intentifying the message as a jv proposal. The 2 are not mutually exclusive.

If this is in a higly marketed niche like IM is, off the top of my head an example of this would be something like "John, ready to see a JV that is different?" or "What do most JVs have in common?". A little effort could even come up with something much better. Of course you need to follow through with providing something that IS different, but the point here is that you can still arouse curiosity, but you target your prospect and have them in the right mindset to be accepting to a possible proposal.

I also think that scott has a very good point here about testing several different headlines. It has the added advantage of being more personal if 2 or more fellow marketers both recieve a proposal and discuss it amongst themselves...and don't think they don't.

Also in your message the more that you can individualize or target it to your prospect the more responsive they will be to your JV email. If you can indentify with them personally or tell them why you think that they personally would be a jv partner, it will go a long way to improve response beyond just opening the message.

Good luck

[Ladan Lashkari]

Hi Candace,

Some great advice has been shared here by other respectful members. So I wanted to add some additional points...

It's important to remember what the real purpose of your subject line is. It is to make your potential JV partner interested and curious enough to open your email and start reading it.

Many people make the mistake of trying to "sell" with their subject line. It's when your subject line will just turn off people because it looks like a sales pitch... a "too early" sales pitch.

But here's a very powerful tip to at least double the responses you receive:

Don't just send a JV proposal as your first email to them.

Build a relationship with them first.

A great technique I've used myself several times and have found very effective, is starting your conversation with them about one of their articles you've read or one of their product that you have used and found helpful. The key is to start talking about THEM first.

Give genuine compliments about their products and websites.

Show interest about them.

And it's very important that you do this all genuinely, because if you fake it, they will know the first moment and will lose all respect for you. So you'll lose them as a potential and valuable JV partner forever.

So first build a relationship with them and then approach them with your offer. It will increase your success dramatically. I can't emphasize it enough how important it is.

By the way, I read an awesome course about how to have a super success with JVs a while ago and truly loved it. I had read many other courses before but this one was really amazing. The author himself is also one of the most successful JV marketers and brokers.

If you're really serious about having big success with JVs, I highly recomend this course. It's called Instant JV Success System (http://www.instantjointventuresuccess.com) by Chris Rempel.

Wish you good luck,

Ladan

P.S. I'm not affiliated with the author of this course and I won't get paid if you order it. I'm just sharing it with you as a friendly recommendation. :)

[Tim Prince]

Ladan,

I know you're not affiliated with Chris, but check out his sales site...

http://www.instantjointventuresuccess.com/

There's a picture of him with a girl that looks exactly like you. Just a coincidence, but thought that was odd.

;D