SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

?? Main Topic: Email Subject Lines
Tom emphasizes the critical importance of subject lines in email marketing, calling them the deciding factor for whether an email gets opened or ignored — regardless of how great the content or offer is.
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?? Key Takeaways:
• Subject Line = Gatekeeper: No matter how good your offer or copy, if the subject line doesn’t grab attention, the email won’t get read.
• Keep it Short:
o Traditionally, subject lines should be 50 characters or less, but now with mobile use, aim for 40 characters or less.
o Put the most important words on the left.
• Grab Attention:
o Use curiosity (e.g., “You won’t believe this…” – Zeigarnik Principle).
o Create urgency (e.g., “Only 10 slots available”).
o Be specific: “3 Tips to Boost Open Rates by 20%” is more effective than a vague “Learn to Increase Open Rates”.
• Relevance is Key:
o Segment your list. Don’t send dog-training offers to public speaking subscribers.
o Personalize where possible (e.g., name, pet name, or interest-based terms like “Golf nuts”).
• Tactical Tips:
o Welcome emails should include an incentive (e.g., “Welcome + Free Bonus”).
o Localize subject lines: “Dog Owners in Columbus – Read This”.
o Use emojis sparingly—they can boost open rates in the right context.
o Ask provocative questions (though be careful in today’s climate).
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?? Resources & Promotions:
• Automation Book v3.0: screwthecommute.com/automatefree
• Mentor Program: greatinternetmarketingtraining.com
• Digital Marketing School (IMTCVA): Certified by SCHEV – available via distance learning.
• Upcoming possible book: The Ultimate Guide to Subject Lines
• Existing book: The Ultimate Guide to List Building
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?? Final Thoughts:
Tom reinforces that email is still the most profitable marketing channel, and the subject line is your ticket to getting read. Social media is useful primarily to drive traffic to your email list.
Stay tuned for Episode 1000, a special tribute to his father.

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Episode 999 – Subject Lines
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 999 of Screw the Commute podcast. I hope you don't miss episode 1000 coming up. It's going to be a salute to my father, who is sitting here talking to you, basically. So that'll be episode 1000. Anyway, today we're going to talk about email subject lines. Now, this topic has made me millions and millions of dollars over many years being good at this. So we're going to give you a primer on it today. Hope you didn't miss episode 98, and this is one of the reasons I brought subject lines back, was because of I email summaries that are starting to bite into email open rates. So subject lines, really great ones can can help you keep your email marketing going. Okay, I hope you didn't miss picking up a copy of our automation book. And you've heard me say this 999 times now. All right. But but version 3.0 is out. So if you have the old version, get rid of it and go over to screwthecommute.com/automatefree and pick up version 3.0. Don't forget that to get to a back episode like like the I email summaries 995, you go to episode number, all right. And also I got the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet marketing, a mentor program that greatinternetmarketingtraining.com, and the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world at IMTCVA.org where you or your loved one can get an in-demand skill in as little as six months.

[00:02:14] And we got people making money before they even graduate. It's certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning, and you can be anywhere. You can get an internet connection. All right. Let's get into subject lines. First of all, if you're doing email marketing, if you mess up the subject line, nothing else matters. Nothing. You could have the greatest sales letter in the world, written by the greatest sales letter writers in the world, or AI versions that you had to doctor up, or the best product in the world, the best offer in the world. You could be giving away something for free that's worth millions of dollars. None of it matters if you mess up the subject line. That's what's going to get them to open it. Now, one thing I will throw in from my email marketing training is you need to be consistent in who it's from, because if they don't recognize who it's from, that's the fastest way to get your email deleted. All right. But anyway, once they recognize you, your subject line is the most important thing. Now, for many, many years I have been preaching to keep it 50 characters or less and the most important things to the left, and that includes spaces. But now I'm being forced to revise that to 40 characters or less because of so many people are on cell phones and tablets.

[00:03:45] So try to keep it 40 characters or less and you know, the shorter something is, the harder it is to write. So you do have to really pay attention, but still put the most important stuff to the left. Now your subject line needs to grab their attention. It can create curiosity that gets them to open with the Zeigarnik principle, which we teach in our copywriting course, you can use a subject line to create a sense of urgency, like the old FOMO, fear of missing out. I just did one recently. Only ten slots available for my podcast guesting course. All right, so people start signing up, like virtually as soon as the email hit. But one thing you got to do, even if you have a great subject line, if it's not relevant to the person receiving it, it's not going to get the email open. That's why you target different lists. Like I wouldn't send a protection dog, which is one of my side companies subject line to people interested in public speaking. All right. Yeah, some of them might be interested in dogs, but, you know, for the most part it's going to get deleted like crazy and spam complaints. So so make sure it's relevant. You can do welcome emails when people get on, but just welcome doesn't really get it that well. If you did a welcome plus something like welcome to so and so plus free gift or plus unannounced bonus that will get you more opens than just welcome that they were expecting because they just signed up for something of yours.

[00:05:22] But in that welcome, you know you can make a better bond with the person, lead them to other products and services, get them to click through to your website and so forth. You can use the location in the subject line. So if it applies to like dog owners in Columbus, well, if you're a dog owner in Columbus, you're going to open that darn email, right? But you might send different ones to dog owners in Toledo and dog owners in in Missoula, Montana. Right. So but if it's local localized, that can get bigger open rates. Personalization up to a point a lot of spammers use personalization. Use your name in there. But if you put the pet name in there, that would get it open. People's interest. Like I might say, golf nuts. You won't believe this. And so that used two things. It used the interest and it used the organic curiosity technique of like you won't believe what. Oh, it's about golf. I want to open that. See, now, another thing you want to keep in mind that I have been preaching since Superman was a baby is specific cells and general doesn't. So you could say something like learn to increase your open rates. Okay. That's general or three absolute tips to increase open rates by 20%.

[00:06:48] Now that's 44 characters including the spaces. But still that's a pretty powerful compared to learn to increase open rates. See, because it was specific, you can pose a question, a provocative question to people like how many of you out? How many of you guys out there wear Hanes pantyhose? All right. So now that was you can get away with that a lot more in the old days. But but, uh, you know, provocative questions can get people to open. You can use emojis in many email programs. Now that can can help your open rate. So basically I want you to concentrate on subject lines. I'm probably going to write a book called The Ultimate Guide to Subject Lines here pretty soon, because I have the Ultimate Guide to list building, which is something you ought to grab because, I mean, it's just millions and millions of dollars. Everybody at my level and above makes the bulk of the money on email. And the only people that dispute this are the ones selling social media training. All right. We use social media to get them the heck off of there onto an email list. So check that out. It's building and grab yourself a copy of that very powerful e-book. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Get those subject lines so you can get those emails open. I'll catch you on the next episode. See you later, which is 1000.