Ryan Dohrn explains why question marks in email subject lines boost open rates: they trigger curiosity and make readers ask "what now?" He shares tactics like using dates to create urgency, warns against bait-and-switch tricks, and stresses varying follow-ups to stay fresh.
What's going on, friends and fans? Ryan Dorn here, your friendly neighborhood sales coach, answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandorn.com. Keep those questions coming. Love to answer your listener questions. Next one comes from Robert up in Pennsylvania. I was just up in Pennsylvania, Robert. Nice to get your question. Hey, Ryan, what's up with all the question marks in all your subject lines? Question mark, question mark, question mark. Robert from Pennsylvania. The reason that I use question marks in my subject lines is to drive somebody's brain forward to the next thing that I want them to do. So it's been well documented out there that the vast majority of people actually open an email or answer an email based upon the subject line and almost nothing else. So the reason that I suggest to my clients, to my friends, to my fans using a question mark— I guess I just did the, I did the question mark, so the Shift+question mark— the question mark at the end of those subject lines is because I want someone's brain to say, what now? Or, huh? Or, what's that all about? So let me explain. A lot of times in the subject lines that you write, you're very thorough, you're very expressive, and you're very clear. The problem is a lot of times people can answer and make a choice based upon the subject line that you included. So for example, as a lot of you know, I sell a lot in the advertising and digital marketing business. So if I sent the subject line, new digital marketing idea for you to try, or something like that, if they read that subject line, their brain has to say, do I want to read this or do I not want to read it? Digital advertising, I don't know if I'm interested. And if they're not, it's just a delete. It's not a— or it's an inbox drift. Like they say, I'm not going to deal with it now, and then it does the drift down through somebody's inbox. You know what I mean? Okay, so what I like to do is I use a subject line, your thoughts on this? Question mark. Your thoughts on this? It makes somebody's brain say, you want my thoughts on what? It basically forces them to then go look at your email because they can't delete it or just ignore it to let it do the inbox drift. Based upon the subject line and nothing else. So for me, question marks in the subject lines, Robert, cause somebody's brain to go, now what? Now what's that? One of my favorite subject lines, I've talked about it for years, is a date. Like using a date. Like if I wanted to meet with somebody on December 3rd, the subject line would be December 3rd question mark. It makes their brain go like, what now? What's December 3rd? What's this? And they've got— their brain is not— they're just not They just can't resist having to actually open the email because they need to look at like, what did I miss? Or what's this coming up? Or what's this all about? Now I want to be really clear, I am not a fan of baiting and switching people, like a subject line that would be like free lunch and then someone opens it like gotcha, or a subject line like, oh, about those pictures, like what is that? That kind of is just craziness. You're not being clever, you're being silly. Instead, Robert, and everybody out there that's listening and watching, I love to use question marks in a subject line to engage with somebody's brain, to make somebody's brain say, now what's that? What's that all about? I better take a look at that. Remember though, as a part of my prospecting process, my email process, I never send the same email over and over again. So if I reached out to somebody and the subject line was, your thoughts on this? I'm going to use a different subject line and a different body of the email The next time I reach out, I don't resend something so it puts the RE in front of it. That's sort of like saying, hey, hey, hey, are you listening? Have you not? You got to listen to me. I'm sending this again, buddy. You didn't reply to it. We don't want to be seen as that type of person. Remember, in all of our sales situations, we want to be seen as an advisor, somebody that provides value to their conversations with us. So Robert, that's why all the question marks are out there. So my question for you, Robert, is Will you give it a try? Keep your questions coming, ryan@ryandohrn.com. Friends, never forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. I used to say we're crazy. We're not crazy. Well, maybe we're a little crazy. Sales is a great job though. It's going to feed your family for a lifetime. Take this information and put it into good use and comment down below whether you're listening or watching on YouTube. Give us a like, subscribe to the channel. We sure appreciate it. All right, friends, we'll see you next time. Learn more over at ryandohrn.com.
