It seems to me that some marketers are ge4tting more and more desperate to get people to open their emails, so much so that over the last few months there seems to be a whole spate of very miss-leading email subject line's used, they're getting so bad that they resemble spam...

In fact a lot of them are now getting marked as spam and "quarantined" by my spam filter system!

here's a few of the worst examples that I've seen over the last few months, but please feel free to post a comment and share any that I've missed that you particularly dislike!

Miss-leading Email Subjects that I hate: -

1. Your trial subscription has been canceled

2. Congratulations ,Claim Your Cleared eCheck Payment

3. Ticket no 4JK94U - Outstanding Affiliate Commissions

4. Your Order Is Complete

5. Notification of Payment Received

6. Payment Refund...

7. Payment Notification

8. Your PayPal Account Deposit

9. Your Friday Paycheck Is In

10. Your Password, [your name]

11. RE: Response Required (private)

12. (Personal)

13. RE: [your email address]

14. RE: Your Account

15. RE: Response Required (private)

16. RE: Download link expired?

17. RE: YOUR ACCOUNT IS CONFIRMED

18. re: Your Order Is Complete - Please Save This Email

19. Confirmed: Your First sale online...

20. Request for free access has been approved

21. [your name], your owed $608.37 Clickbank commission

22. Congratulations: You have $770 GUARANTEED commission now!

23. Message from: Notification::PayPal sent you $7,200 USD

24. Your Download (Expiring Soon)

25. $150 PayPal Payment Delivery - Expiration Notice

that's a pretty long list, and it didn't take me long trawling through my emails to create it, AND I missed out quite a few...

So which do you think is the worst?

or are, like me, do you just find them all damned irritating..?

Leave a comment below and let me know...

I will admit I'm not perfect and occaisionally an email subject line slips through that's not as accurate or descriptive as it should be, but I try to stick to subject line's that actually give readers a good idea of what's going to be covered in the email.

I believe it makes it easier for my readers to quickly decide whether an email is going to be of interest to them, whereas using one of these "tricky" style subject line's is more likely to potentially end up wasting their time, and subsequently irritating them...

but there is a another reason I prefer use descriptive, and generally keyword based, subject lines...

I also tend to use many of the emails I write as the content for a blog post on one of my blogs as well, so having the keywords in the subject gives me the best title to use for the blog post to attract Targeted visitors, '2 birds with one stone' as the old saying goes...

If you want to have a spam system that will catch these kind of emails and quarantine them for you, then I can highly recommend the one I've used for the last 7 or 8 years - SpamArrest

[this post: miss leading email subjects]

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It's on Matthew Glanfield's BBO Institute Blog and you can read the whole post about a very dodgy (imho) Wholesale Dropshipping Directory Site Here

What started as a free trial, turned in to a $1 trial, and ended up costing over $100!

Matt's been kind enough to share the details with his readers so they can steer clear of a company who seem to have a somewhat unethical way of doing business...

I recommend checking the full story out..

Wholesale Dropshipping Directory Site Here

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He doesn't send one out very often, but when he does it's like a work or art, both entertaining and packed full of useful info.

Here's a classic example that landed in my inbox a few minutes ago:

Movie Script.

Internet wars episode one.

(These words moving away from you with star-field backdrop. Dramatic music.)

A long time ago in a Galaxy far far away the evil empire under the Sith Lord " Internet expert" had rebuilt the disabled death Star and created a new weapon even more powerful. The new "Google star" was armed with a revolutionary mind interference ray called, the Adword.

Armed with this new weapon entire worlds could be enslaved by believing the myth of passive advertising. Thousands of star systems and their populations fell under its influence. Previously sane, intelligent people were instantly bamboozled into sending millions of star credits to the Google star in the hope of building businesses of their own whereas, in fact, it only made the Sith Lord and his Google star even more powerful.

Meanwhile, on the distant planet Croissant, hidden in the ancient and disused jam butty mines, the last remaining Jedi and leader of the new Republic, Dr Gozzo, was marshalling his troops...

(Scene cuts to tall, handsome, bearded, living god - Dr Gozzo, speaking to thousands of space-suited soldiers standing in a makeshift hanger. The sign 'Strawberry jam is good for you' hangs forlornly in the distance, a symbol of a better time long before the evil Health & Safety Executive sucked all enterprise from the human soul. Dr Gozzo rises to speak ...)

"My friends, for years the dreaded Google star has terrified and misled the people of the Galaxy and we must destroy it at all costs. Our team of dedicated scientists has uncovered a major flaw in its construction. Many have died to gain this information.

The Adword Ray persuades the innocent that passive advertising is the only way. The Sith Lord and his many apprentices take full advantage of this to draw star credits from the poorest people who are led to believe this nonsense.

My friends, active advertising is the way. Active advertising was the old Jedi way. The envelope appeared on the doorstep. It was opened and read. Although many were thrown away, the message was imparted. It was an active process where the reader had no choice but to view the message simply because it was thrust in front of him. Television advertising is the same. It is active. The message is placed in front of the reader.

The myth of passive advertising is evil. It requires the reader to drag himself away from "EastStarEnders", or "Corona-Station Street" and sit in front of his computation device. It requires him to take the initiative and dial in to the Google star homepage interface.

It requires him to use the same keywords you have used when setting up your search engine optimisation. All these things must be done spontaneously by the reader without your influence. In the unlikely event of anyone doing this they will be presented with the dreaded Adword homepage, a page so evil that your advert may or may not appear according to the competition for the highest bidder.

And the Google star is programmed to hike up the costs at random.

Indeed you have no idea when or where your Adword appears. All you know is that it costs.

My friends, active Internet advertising is banned. The idea where you can send your hallowed message directly to a million e-mail addresses is now named after a tasty and nutritious luncheon meat and cannot be used. But there are millions of websites, literally millions, who have databases of their own. And active advertising is allowed when owners of large databases contact their people.

As a result our teams of scientists have invented a new weapon to combat the dreaded Google Adwords Ray. It is called the JV Ray. The JV, or joint-venture, is active. It targets your offer directly to millions of people who have already indicated their desire for more information. It does not require them to get off their blessed backsides first.

They will receive your message in e-mails from your joint-venture partner.

They will receive your message in the newsletters from your joint-venture partner.
Or in their blogs.

They may see it on the homepage of websites they go to frequently on their favourites list, without using search engines.

Furthermore they have a good relationship already established with your joint-venture partner and therefore trust their judgement. Such a recommendation can boost response rates up to 20%. This means that a joint-venture partner having a database of only 17,500 subscribers can generate 100 grand in sales of a small $29 item.

And the joint-venture partner will receive most of this and be more than happy to do business with you.

Anyone with a good product or message merely has to contact a suitable JV partner to actively achieve in days something that would take years to do passively.

My friends, this is a true breakthrough. The death of the Google star is imminent. Your rocket businesses and space fliers have now been armed with the new JV Ray. Go now and fill the Galaxy with your transmissions. Long live the Republic."

(Camera draws back as thousands of flowers fall from hangar roof. Dramatic music. And cut.)

No animals were harmed in the making of this production.

No spurious sales messages, special offers or other sales rubbish is included in this presentation.

Phil's Blog does not harm clothes nor irritate the skin.
But it does make you think.

From Phil Gosling's Newsletter, to get on his list visit:

http://www.homepublish.com/
or
http://www.renegadelemming.com/

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-> 44 spots. That's it.
->
-> 44 spots is all we have left in the New Beginnings:
-> Growing Beyond Me Too event.
->
-> We're still a couple weeks out, and the buzz on this
-> spectacular marketing and business building
-> extravaganza is rising to a fever pitch.

Fever Pitch!
Really?
Then how come there are still 44 places left with only a couple of weeks to go..

->
-> Everyone's talking about the lineup of speakers....the
-> tremendous workshops...the first ever Maven Builder
-> Bootcamp...the fabulous Disney location...
->
-> And that's all very cool. But one thing still bugs me.
->
-> I was just scanning through the list of attendees
-> today, and I didn't see your name. And frankly, I'm
-> scratching my head.
->

Like this guy would really know me from "Adam", we've never met, talked or even swapped emails..

-> Because you probably already know how much we
-> overdeliver on our products, right?
->
-> And you know the tremendous profit-building power we
-> instill into each and every one of our offerings,
-> right?
->
-> And most of all, you know that our products WORK--plain
-> and simple--right?
->
-> So why aren't you coming?
->

why am I not attending?
I live across the pond, it's a long way to come

it goes on at some length after that, but I just couldn't be 4rsed to read the rest, it's not only quite obviously a "broadcast" email, but it doesn't even have my name at the start to make some attempt at personalizing it, and it's so "OTT" (over the top) it just put me off, even though I know that it would probably be worth attending if it was a tad more "local" to me.

It's also quite ironic that there is almost zero real "information" in the promotion, when it comes from someome who has built their reputaion on giving great value away for free to build a good relationship with his "customers"..

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