We often get asked for the best sales email subject titles that get opened and read. It’s a tough one, because clinicians get lots of emails but they spend most of their time with patients. So how do you cut through the noise and create a good subject line?
Before we go into the specifics, remember that a single sales email does not a sales strategy make. An email can be one of many touch points and one of many contact strategies, but emails on their own will not generate meetings or leads. Here’s why:
Emails are lazy
Crafting a sales email takes less time than calling. You can write it out of hours without having to navigate a clinicians busy schedule. You haven’t got to get through an assistant. It makes you feel good to write an email and send it; you feel like you’ve ticked something off, made initial contact, and moved a prospect forward. And you can send it to multiple prospects, saving you time.
But here’s the thing. Clinicians know all this. Let’s face it, everyone knows this. It’s why many of us barely give sales emails a glance. Because it feels impersonal, inauthentic and idle.
So if you’re going to send a sales email, it’s got to work hard. It’s got to be personal (and by that we don’t just mean changing the name!), it’s got to be interesting. It’s got to add value or share something unexpected. And it’s got to be part of a much wider sales strategy.
Spark curiosity
The subject line is one of the most important parts of your sales email and its main goal is to spark curiosity. It’s no more complicated than that.
So pull out the last 3 sales emails you sent. Does the title make you curious? Does it cause your eyebrows to raise slightly? Does it make you want to know more? If it does, you’re probably on the right lines. But if, when you review your subject lines objectively, you think ‘so what?’ or ‘whatever’, you’ve got a brilliant opportunity to transform your sales emails just by changing a few words.
Email titles housekeeping
It’s worth bearing these pointers in mind as an overall guide:
- Keep it short and punchy
- Ideally subject lines should be fewer than 10 words
- Try to get it under 60 characters (after this, the subject line often gets cut off)
- Make it about your prospect, not about you (What’s In It For Me?)
- Make the value clear; what will they get from opening your email?
The best medical sales email subject lines
Here are our tried and tested favourites:
The stats or social proof
A statistic about their product or the industry can provide an interesting hook. Similarly, some social proof about the number of devices or patients helped can provoke curiosity.
1) The evidence you’ve been looking for…
2) 3 ways to help / solve [pain point]
3) 300,000 patients and counting
4) Exciting new data on…
5) You only have 2 choices…
The question
Asking a question immediately primes the reader for a response. And if they’re thinking about an answer, they’ll want to read more. Questions can also stay with the reader; a prospect might ponder a pointed question during then day and then come back to your email.
6) Who’s training your team?
7) Do you need to [goal] ?
8) Are you letting 2021 define your 2022?
The ask
We like to feel needed, or important. Asking for help or an opinion can be a way to elicit an email open.
9) I would love your opinion on…
10) Tell me how I can support you this week…
All of these suggested titles have one thing in common; they’re all about the prospect. As soon as you start to write the word ‘we’ or ‘our’ that’s a red flag that it’s no longer about the prospect. And prospects don’t really care about you; they care about what’s in it for them.
Try some of these email subject lines, build on them and add your own variations too. And always keep track of the ones that generate a response so you can create your own top ten email subject lines and reuse them.
