Had to smile when in my email inbox this morning was a notification of a post on Clayton Makepeace’s blog with the subject line…

“Are you making these major copy mistakes, Kevin?”

Couple of things to note…

Firstly, of course, the subject line makes use of one of the classic headline templates “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?”

Despite the fact that it gets used so often, it almost always gets my attention and my guess is that it’s generally very effective.

My take on why it’s so effective is that it hits the “fear of loss” button so well.

The “fear of loss” emotion can often be more powerful than “desire for gain” and tends not to be used so much.

Secondly, note the personalisation.  Easy to do with most email programs.  Some debate now about whether it’s effective in email.

The argument against using personalisation is that the aim is to make your email look like it’s genuinely coming from a friend.  A real friend wouldn’t usually put your name in the subject line (“Dude” or “Mate” perhaps).

My take? Depends on your list.

If you’re Frank Kern or operating at that level of sophistication, then you probably don’t need the personalisation.

Otherwise, it’s probably a plus.  In traditional direct mail, adding personalisation was always found to bump response.

And the real answer, I guess, is “test” and see what works best for your list.

As to Clayton’s article, it’s titled…

“The 3 Most Common Blunders Even ‘A’ Level Copywriters Make”

…and well worth the read.