What job are you hiring your headlines and subject lines to do?
Are you hiring them to summarize or “capture” what you’ve written? Or are you hiring them to get your next sentence read?
Your headline has one job to do: To get me to read the first sentence of your article or post.
Your email subject line has one job too: To get me to read the first sentence of your email.
I’m guilty as charged. I’m a professional marketer and writer who, to this day, catches myself crafting subject lines and headlines that capture the essence of what I’ve written. But that’s not their job.
The job of a headline and subject line is to get the first sentence read.
Starting with your next email to a prospect or client, craft your subject line to do that job. And only that job.
The same goes for the next blog post or article you write.