Interview with Jared Kimball, Author of “14 Email Subject Line Formulas”

Today, we had a chance to interview Jared Kimball, who recently published 14 Email Subject Line Formulas. Below is an exchange between Jared and FIND the CLIENT’s Brian Farrell about the book.

Tell us about yourself, and what made you write this book?
I’ve was introduced to the world of marketing back in 2008 after I was furloughed by the airline I was working for. Yes, I used to be an airline pilot.

Back then all I knew was basic website stuff like HTML and setting up a blog with WordPress, but I didn’t have a clue when it came to marketing or marketing anything online for that matter. I just thought that if I build a website the people will come and I was wrong because nobody came to my website back in those days.

When I was furloughed I heard about this local company called Infusionsoft and I was encouraged to apply for a job there. I did apply and got the job and started out as a consultant (they’re called Coaches now).

Anyway, that job opened up my eyes to the world of online marketing, email marketing and marketing automation. I was hooked.

I started to read everything I could on marketing, copywriting, email marketing, advertising and the like. I couldn’t get enough of it.

After working at Infusionsoft for almost 2 years and helping hundreds of small businesses set up, launch and optimize their email marketing campaigns I started to get a good feel for what worked and what didn’t when it came to sending emails.

In early 2010 the airline called me and told me that I was eligible for the upcoming class in February, and I decided to go back to flying. But when I went back things had changed. The pay was reduced (pilots actually don’t make that much money for example, first year pay for pilots averages around $20,000) and the workloads were increased for all flight crew members.

In October of 2010 I decided to get out of aviation permanently, and I went right back into email marketing. At this time I was managing and running the email marketing for one of the largest travel agencies in the world. They had an email database of over 3 million registered members. These were members who paid annually to be a part of a variety of unique travel programs.

Anyway, working there I got a ton of experience writing, testing and optimizing email marketing campaigns. It was invaluable experience and I learned a lot while I was there.

However, I was offered an opportunity to write pilot manuals on a variety of different types of aviation equipment. The contract was solid and there was plenty of work, plus I could pick up more email marketing clients at the same time so I did.

Without going into too much detail on my work background I have personally been responsible for sending, testing and optimizing millions of emails since 2008 and most of those campaigns have been mostly focused on small businesses.

As I work with more and more small businesses I realized that a lot of people started asking me about how to write better email subject lines to increase their open rates specifically and I created a couple of presentations and did a few training events, but it wasn’t enough.

People needed something more concrete. They need an easy way create subject lines without having to really think about it very much, and that’s when I decided to sit down and look back at all of my emails to figure out what were the patterns for success.

And that’s how I got the idea to write this book.

What’s your favorite subject line formula? Why?
Although it’s not as sexy sounding as the “Boost Formula” or the “Menace Formula” my favorite and most powerful formula has been the “You & I Formula.” The You & I Formula allows an email marketer, business owner to get inside the head of exactly who they are targeting for an email broadcast. But the real power of this formula is unlocked in your Marketing Automation campaigns or what some people might call an Autoresponder series.

In the You & I Formula you try to imagine what your ideal prospect is thinking about when it comes to your product or service. So if you run a pool cleaning pool you’d sit down and write out thoughts like the following:

• Why does my pool company do a horrible job at sticking to the schedule?
• Who’s the best company to call to clean my green pool?
• I wonder how much a pool cleaning service costs on average?
• Am I getting ripped off?
• And etc.

Why this formula is so powerful is that you can literally sit down and think about the thoughts, frustrations and objections that your target prospect has on a regular basis, and when you write those thoughts into a list you know how to write your email series. Of course, you need to attempt to put down the most important or most common thoughts in the series first, but the beauty of it is that you now have a plan for action.

With those thoughts written down you can leverage the You & I Formula to help you create powerful email subject lines that really stand out to your prospects. It’s a thing of beauty when you take the time to think and write it out.

Do you find these 14 subject line formulas useful in other areas besides email, such as writing blog posts?
Yes, these email subject line formulas can be used on a variety of different areas including blog posts, direct mail pieces, display ads both online and offline. The opportunities are endless.

The book focuses mainly on creating email subject lines, but you could easily adopt the formulas for those other areas.

Anything else we should know (e.g. website, Twitter, etc.)?
Thanks for asking Brian. I give away a ton of useful marketing material, PDFs, worksheets, live training sessions, and a lot more for people who subscribe to MarketerLife.com. I’d encourage anyone who’s trying to improve their marketing, email marketing, and/or sales automation should definitely sign up. People can also follow me on Twitter or like my page on Facebook if they’re interested as well.