For an email campaign to work, it’s gotta get opened – hello, subject lines.

The subject line is what your fan sees in their inbox, along with all the other subject lines from everything else they get everyday.

There’s two good ways to figure out if your subject lines are working:

1. A/B testing, which means sending two versions of the same email to a subset of your email list with different subject lines, then measuring the performance of each. You can do this with services like Mailchimp, but not Substack.
2. Check older emails and see which ones got opened more.

If you only send three emails a year, though, this won’t work.

It’d be like playing three songs at a show every night. Gonna be hard to nail down what’s actually landing with your audience.

But, really?

Regardless of subject line, the best opened email is one that people expect and really want.

Take for instance 

Stream N’ Destroy from our friend Ryan J. Downey:

If you’re not familiar with Stream N’ Destroy, ehh.. those subject lines aren’t too thrilling, right?

But guess what?

It doesn’t matter, because people who subscribe (music industry folks in the metal and hard rock world) know what they’re getting when Stream N’ Destroy shows up in their inbox.

These are some recent emails from Trivium:

Notice they don’t just say “tour news,” or “updates!” These are clear and concise, and I bet they have a great open rate.

Basically, if no one is opening your email, take a step back and think – are you sending anything that’s really exciting?

Start with the subject line. Does it sing?

From there, would your fans sneak off the job to read your email in the bathroom?

If not, how do you get there?

That’s how to get people opening your emails.

Understand that you’re not just what you’re selling (an album, artwork, photography, attendance figures), you’re a fucking star.

Coca Cola commercials are more interesting than a 2L bottle of sugar water.
A live show is more interesting than a CD mock up.
Your Twitch stream is more interesting than a shirt.

There is no shortage of vinyl records or songs to stream on Spotify or podcasts to listen to.

But there’s only one of you.