How To Write An Unignorable Subject Line Using The A.B.C.D.E. Framework

Woohoo! 🥳 The first blog post of The Story Peddler is finally live! 

It’s a joy to have you here.

And since this is the first post of the blog, we HAVE to start with a fuckin’ BANGER!

Wait, does it hurt SEO to say “fuckin’” so early on in the post?

Fuck!

Fuck me, dude! What the fuck?

😁

Aaanyway, welcome to the blog!

To honor this special event, I’m going to share with you something I had originally reserved for a PAID course.

In fact, I had created said course 2 years ago and I still have it sitting on my hard drive, but I’ve decided to follow a different direction.

And NOT ONLY THAT, but this framework I’m going to show you today is EVEN MORE developed than the one I shared inside the course.

Aren’t you lucky to get it for free 😏

This is also the same subject line framework I’ve used (and am still using) to get 50%+ open rates for myself and my clients in all sorts of industries and niches, from courses and SaaS to coffee and sleep care.

In fact, just a week ago I finished a 5-day launch for one of those clients that collected $150,000 in cash.

But enough waiting!

Let’s dive right in, welcome to the blog!

A is For Audience

When your subject line directly calls out the kind of people you want to attract, it does 2 amazing things for you:

1) It pushes away people that are a BAD fit 

And 2) It pulls in people that are a GOOD fit

 This will help you sell more in the moment and develop a better relationship with your audience as you filter out the bad leads, while the good ones feel closer to you with every email

❌ Example WITHOUT Audience: Elevate your cooking skills with this free ebook

This looks good at first sight. It even says cooking skills. So the audience is cooks, right?

Not exactly.

‘Cooks’ is too broad of an audience. 

A recreational homecook wants to learn different things than an up-and-coming chef, who also wants to learn different things than a mom cooking for her family. 

And what if they are keto or paleo or they try to imitate the Liver King’s ancestral lifestyle (God forbid).

Let me give you another example:

“Take your workouts to the next level”

Again, technically, it’s for people who work out.

But what kind of workouts?

Are we talking resistance training? Running? Swimming? Pilates?

Again, too broad so I can’t relate to the subject line.

✅ Example WITH Audience: The searing technique Michelin chefs use for perfect meat texture

Now I’m getting much more specific with my audience, because I call them out in 3 ways:

They cook meat. They use the pan. They care about what Michelin chefs  do.

This way, it’s much more likely that this is going to be something relevant, useful, interesting, and worth their time.

B is For Benefit

Adding a benefit in your subject line tells your reader that this is worth their time. They are going to gain SOMETHING out of this.

❌ Example WITHOUT Benefit: “Do you have a moment?” “Attention Homecooks” “Big news!”

Why would I open any of those emails? There IS curiosity, but there’s no promise that this will be worth my time.

What am I to gain from those?

This makes those subject lines boring or even scammy in some cases, since you’re already in a state of mind that “I’m not gaining anything from this. Only giving,” which is largely what scams make you do, if you think about it.

(There are better ways to write subject lines solely based on curiosity, as we’ll see in a bit, but you might notice the based curiosity-driven headlines have at least a hint of a benefit in them)

✅ Example WITH Benefit: “How to cut your dish-washing time in half”

This time, I have a reason to open the email.

It promises me that if I learn the stuff inside I will spend much less time washing the dishes after I’m done cooking (seems that we’re sticking to the homecook examples 🤷)

Which means I’m going to spend LESS time doing stuff I do NOT like and more time doing stuff I DO like.

(Or just lay on the bed and pretend to be a starfish).

Either way, I’m benefitting in one way or another.

C is For Curiosity

We are curious creatures by design. When we don’t have the complete picture about something, it stays in our minds and we want to search for closure.

It’s one of the most powerful things you can add to a subject line.

“The best way to get a prospect’s attention is to appeal to their sense of curiosity” 

— Gary Halbert

And that’s why you’ll see so many people opening even half-assed 0-effort emails with subject lines like “Jake?” 

(where Jake is your name. Though one could argue that if your name is Mark and you receive an email with the subject line “Jake?” you’ll still open it because what the fuck).

You have no idea what’s up. No idea what kind of benefit you’re going to get. But you’re curious to see how this person knows your name and what they want from you.

Now, imagine if you used curiosity properly like: 

“Even the founder of the church of Satan agrees with me” 

— Ben Settle

It doesn’t have an explicit benefit (though it pretty much promises an interesting email). It doesn’t talk to a specific audience. But it makes you want to read, doesn’t it?

❌ Example WITHOUT Curiosity: How to use alliteration to make your course content more appealing

🤮

I mean, it’s definitely making a clear promise. And has nailed the audience (people who sell courses and want to make them more appealing).

But it’s so BORING.

Even if I care about the topic, it’s much less likely that I will click on this shit.

Not exactly sure why. On paper, it should work. 

But this is the internet, we don’t have papers here.

*Ba dum tss* 🥁

I’ve seen this happen with clients’ emails and with myself.

I was receiving a newsletter I theoretically should care about, based on the premise, but the subject lines were so damn BORING that I ended up opening maybe one email to this day. 

I’m still getting emails from them and I don’t know why I haven’t read them nor unsubscribed.

In fact, writing this has probably been the most attention I’ve given to this brand.

Don’t be like them.

✅ Example WITH Curiosity: 4 tips to make people fall IN LOVE with your course content.

Much better.

The content inside the email can be exactly the same as the one that had the subject line with no curiosity. 

The audience is the same. The promise is the same.

But I’m much more curious to see what are those 4 tips.

And especially if I already know how to use alliteration, which would make me completely ignore the first subject line and thus deny you of the opportunity to sell to me.

D is For Drama

If there is ONE thing we, humans, can’t take our eyes away from, it’s DRAMA bab~ee

(idk why I had to clarify that we = humans, definitely not an alien here)

Drama is one of the most monetizable and unignorable pieces of content in the history of mankind.

In fact, it’s SO good that entire TV shows generating MILLIONS of dollars are only using drama as their source of content.

And I’m not talking just about shows like Love Island etc, I remember shows milking pure drama since the 90s (and I’d probably remember earlier ones too, had I been born earlier).

❌ Example WITHOUT Drama: The right way to measure a campaign’s success

I mean…

If I had to describe this subject line with one word, it would be… 

🥱

It does have a benefit. And I guess it has some curiosity baked in, since it implies a lot of people measure their campaigns wrong.

But it’s also pretty ignorable. If I had to guess what the person who said it looks like, it would probably be a grandpa who’s heartbeat doesn’t go past 32BPM.

✅ Example WITH Drama: 🖕 Fuck your numbers 🖕

This is a topic that has been brewing in the background of my mind for a while now and I’m preparing to write an email about soon.

(If you haven’t joined my email list yet, you can do it here btw)

And I’m pretty sure this is going to be the subject line I’ll be using. 

Notice it contains no audience and no benefit.

But it it OOZING with drama and has some curiosity in.

If you’re a fan of tea and know me even a little bit, it’s almost certain you’ll open this email.

E is For Elevate

The final part of the framework is also one of the most important ones.

Because now that you have your subject line ready, it has calls out your audience, gives them a benefit, appeals to their sense of curiosity, and oozes with drama…

You gotta make it POP!

You elevate it.

Which means that you take your subject line and add some color to make it different.

You can capitalize letters (eg You have NO IDEA what you’re missing)

You can add emojis (eg 🖕 Fuck your numbers 🖕 – as you can see, this was already elevated)

You can add symbols (eg Your gift is waiting >>>>>>>>>>> )

Your reader is receiving tens if not HUNDREDS of emails every day.

You have to make your subject line stand out from the noise.

The rest of the framework showed you how to do it word-wise. This part does the same visually

Conclusion

This is my full framework for creating unignorable subject lines that was going to sit inside my $497 course.

Appreciate it, use it, and most importantly, profit from it.

But! Before you go, remember:

You don’t need every part of the framework in every subject lines. The more you have, the better but as you saw, pretty much every subject line missed at least one of the pieces to make it work and not feel clunky.

Now go, get some opens, make some money.

See you on the next one.