#251: Write Click-Worthy Email Subject Lines For Your Next Toy Pitch: Extended
Struggling to get your toy pitch noticed? 🚀
In this episode of Making It In The Toy Industry, host Azhelle Wade reveals the secrets to crafting email subject lines that grab attention and boost your chances of success. Learn the powerful 'Four U’s' formula—Urgent, Useful, Unique, Ultra-Specific—and discover proven tips to make your emails stand out in crowded inboxes.
From real-life examples of high-converting subject lines to bonus tips on emojis and formatting, this episode is packed with actionable advice to level up your email game. Tune in and learn how to write toy pitch emails that get clicks, opens, and results! 🎯✨
Listen For These Important Moments
[1:37] - One-on-One Coaching Opportunity
[02:48] - Email Marketing for Toy Pitches
[07:53] - The Four U's of Email Subject Lines
[17:25] - Bonus Tips for Email Subject Lines
[18:50] - High Converting Email Headlines
[29:41] - TCA Alumni Shoutout!
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Ready to boost your sales? 💡📖 The Art of Click reveals proven copywriting secrets to turn clicks into customers. Grab your copy now on Amazon! 🚀✨ https://www.amazon.com/Art-Click-Harness-Direct-Response-Copywriting/dp/0857196944
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It In The Toy Industry, episode number 251.
[00:00:10] Welcome to Making It In The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors, entrepreneurs, and makers like you. And now your host, Azhelle Wade. Hey there, toy people. Azhelle Wade here, and welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is your weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com.
[00:00:33] First off, I want to take a moment to wish you and your loved ones, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or simply a joyful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. December is a great time for connection and reflection, celebration, and I hope you're finding little magic in it all, losing yourself in a Hallmark movie or two.
[00:00:54] Now, as we wrap up 2024. I'm doing something a bit special and different for this podcast. For the next few weeks, I'll be sharing extended versions of past podcast episodes that have never been released to the public before. I'm also preparing something exciting for the new year. This podcast is getting a fresh new format.
[00:01:14] Yep. Starting January, 2025. I'm so excited for you to experience it. The reason behind this new format and the goal of it is for you to be able to retain and take action on the things you learn in this podcast more actively. So stay tuned, stay subscribed, and get ready to learn with even more clarity and focus as we go into the new year.
[00:01:37] Now, if you've been doing some holiday shopping and you've been seeing products that You don't think are up to snuff and you got an idea that you think needs to be in stores and you're serious about getting that idea licensed or onto store shelves yourself. Let's make it happen together. During a one on one call, we will focus entirely on your specific idea and toy goals.
[00:02:00] I'll help you develop a clear plan of action. Connect you with the right decision makers, whether that be factories, retailers, companies, and give you key tools to help you move that idea forward to the next step. This is your chance to get some expert guidance and coaching tailored to your goals and your needs.
[00:02:20] If you're lucky, there are still some spots left this year. So visit thetoycoach.com/call to book your session. And we can take a big step forward into getting that idea made into a real product. Start 2025 with the momentum you need to succeed in this industry. so much for spending your holiday season with me.
[00:02:42] So without further ado, let's dive into today's extended episode.
[00:02:48] Well, it's pitch season, toy people, and the one thing I know for sure, everyone is looking for visibility right now. Whether you've got a toy invention that you're almost ready to pitch, or a toy product that's ready to sell, these days, you're most likely doing a lot of that pitching and follow up pitching via email.
[00:03:13] And email subject lines are the particular topic for today's episode. Okay, here is how this episode is going to break down. First, we are going to start off with the importance of email. We'll get into stats and all that good stuff. Then we are going to move on to the structure of a good email headline.
[00:03:34] And then we are going to move on to the structure of a good email headline. Finally, we're going to wrap up and I'm going to share with you a few headlines from my highest converting emails, and we'll see how you can apply that to your toy pitch, whether you're pitching a product or whether you're pitching an invention.
[00:03:54] By the end of this episode, you will know how to write click worthy email subject lines for your next toy pitch. Ready? Let's dive in. All right. To start this all off, I want to talk about the importance of email in general. Email is an extremely powerful tool that I see vastly underused and misused by, well, I was going to say inventors and entrepreneurs, but honestly, even corporate toy companies are guilty of not taking full advantage of the power of email marketing.
[00:04:31] I've got to admit, even when I worked as VP of Brand and Product at a toy company, I didn't spend enough of my time focusing on email marketing, but knowing what I know now, boy, would I have done things differently? Now, a question I get pretty often is this. "Azhelle, how do I get my start if I have no connections in the industry at all?"
[00:04:56] Or "Azhelle, how do I get my product featured in blogs and gift guides for free?" The short answer, introduce yourself with email. Back in the day, getting visibility for your product or your business was so hard. It was really all about having the right connections. There was a bit of a bottleneck, all of the power rested with major TV stations, newspapers, high ticket billboard ads.
[00:05:25] But today, social media put the power back in the hands of the people. At the time that this episode aired, there are over 2 million podcasts. On the web, 37 million YouTube channels and over 600 million blogs, which means there are over 639 million potential opportunities for you to get your product featured and seen by millions of people across the world.
[00:05:56] Now, whether you're looking to connect with a popular mommy blogger or the hottest toy influencer on Tik TOK, or the inventor relations rep at Hasbro, there's one common denominator that most every modern professional has in common today. And that my friend is email. So I did a little digging because, you know, I love some stats and according to campaignmonitor.com, approximately 128 business emails are sent and received by professionals per day. That is 16 emails per hour, if you're breaking it down like an eight hour work day, and you can believe that corporate toy professionals have way more to do than just answering emails all day. Now that number is an average over about 4 billion active email accounts worldwide.
[00:06:58] And I know from personal experience, so that number is accurate for me today, but it could fluctuate even higher than that whenever I'm in the midst of a product development life cycle, like back when I worked with Toys R Us. And I know email inboxes of higher ups that go way over that number. Now, those numbers are just business emails.
[00:07:22] The website where I pulled this data, campaignmonitor. com also has a separate stat for consumer emails and that number approximately 117 consumer emails are sent and received per day per person. So if you are an independent toy entrepreneur or a retailer or an inventor trying to form a connection and sell via email, how do you stand out?
[00:07:53] Well, that's why we're going to dive into the topic of how to structure a good email headline. Now, I'm going to start this off by just recommending a book to you. It's a book that I love. It is called The Art of Click. I have mentioned it on this podcast before. I model a great deal of my subject lines after the lessons taught in this book.
[00:08:17] And I'm going to teach the biggest lesson that I took away from this book right here, right now, one more time. And this is the subject line formula of the Four U's. This is actually taught to help you write article titles, but I translated it to email and change the way I use some of the use a bit. And that's what I'm going to teach you right now.
[00:08:43] So your email subject lines should be this. Four U's. Urgent, Useful, Unique, and Ultra Specific. Okay. Now the book, the art of click teaches that formula as an article headline formula, as I said, but you can use it as an email subject line instead. And I have to say, I think it works just as well for email, maybe even better and here's why.
[00:09:13] People today are busy. They're busy getting places, answering texts, and just filtering information before they let it sink in as to whether or not it's important. So let's dive in to the four u's. Let's break them apart a little bit piece by piece, starting with 'Urgent'.
[00:09:33] Now, when your email subject line includes a word that is urgent. It is a word that encourages the reader to take action. Now, depending on who your email is going to and what the purpose of the email is, you should really temper that urgency. For example, you wouldn't email a toy executive with the email subject a toy idea you need right now. Although that does sound compelling, it's not the right style for the type of email you're sending.
[00:10:06] And if you don't deliver that exact value in that email, and it's really not a toy they need now, you'll lose massive amounts of credibility and they may never open your email again. But what you can do is identify what's important to your reader. And in that particular situation, with a company looking to review ideas, what's important to them is first dibs.
[00:10:33] All toy companies want first dibs on a new idea. So if you can translate urgency into a possibility of being first, then maybe you've got a win. Now, the second 'U' in our four yous is 'Useful' and with useful, I like to use my emails to convey the value right off the bat. When you're making an email that's useful, it should be really clear to the reader in the subject what your email is going to be about.
[00:11:09] So an example of this is. Being really clear on the category of your product. If you have a plush doll line and you're emailing your potential customer base about it, you want to make it really clear what that email is for. Maybe you're promoting a coupon for the plush doll or announcing a new feature or simply reminding them that the stock is running low.
[00:11:33] So if you're doing a sale, an example might be save 20 percent on Mackenzie plush. So you're explaining what they're saving and what they're saving it on very clearly in the email. With inventor pitches, you also might say something like "New Feature Plush Concept for 3+" that's an example of a headline that's really useful in explaining to the viewer what's actually inside that email.
[00:12:05] So in order for your email to actually be useful to your audience, you do have to know a little bit about them. So you do have to know that either they're looking for a feature plush, or in the example of the save 20 percent on McKenzie, you have to know, or have to have collected some data to know that that user was interested in the McKenzie plush in the first place to make that email subject a valuable one at all. And if you do that, your homework, right, you're actually doing your reader a favor by including the most important, valuable, useful information in that subject line right away. The next 'U', the third you we have to go over is unique.
[00:12:53] Now, this where really knowing your industry or really knowing your client can come into play really unique email subjects are the kind of email subjects that stick out like a sore thumb, but in a good way, a good tactic to fill that unique requirement is to try to use something that's called power words and power words are words that evoke a strong emotion in people.
[00:13:21] For example, words like surprising or actually, or unbeatable or happy or extraordinary. Power words like these specifically positive power words are a great tactic for pitch emails to a toy company executives or to sales emails, to people looking to buy toy product, because you have to imagine the mindset of the person receiving your emails.
[00:13:51] They want to feel joy. They want to feel happiness. I mean, imagine an executive working really hard all day at a job they love in an industry they love, but still stressed and working really hard. And then they get another ping to alert them of another email and their initial reaction might be overwhelmed.
[00:14:11] But a positive power word like that, like unbeatable or extraordinary could catch their interest. And bring up just enough positive emotion to help you get a click. So an example of this might be, you might have an email subject line like "A New Invention, A Surprising Twist on Outdoor Games." But, you can also fulfill that unique requirement in a different way.
[00:14:39] You could also fulfill that unique requirement by adding something into your email subject line that completely goes against the standards of your industry, or something that is just out of the norm for how people write headlines in your industry. So, for example, if you have a digital toy, you could do a completely against the grain subject line that says something like, more screen time can make your kids smarter.
[00:15:08] I mean, if that's true, if your product is maybe an educational product, yeah, you can go for it and get that clickable headline that will make them want to read more. Unique headlines are jarring. Okay, next up, our final 'U' is Ultra- Specific. I know it's not really a full 'U'. They talk about that in the book, but it helps you remember it, having them all be four 'U's.
[00:15:35] The requirement for ultra specific is to get very specific to and about your customer. So you can meet this criteria by adding a person's name to the email subject. But if you don't have that identifiable consumer data, then you've got to add something that you specifically know that the general person you're sending this email to once.
[00:16:00] Now, when you're using the person's name, one tip, do not overuse it. You know, not every email can go out with a person's name in it because the more you use it, the less effective it will be. But, you can expect that if you put a person's name and it's spelled correctly, it will be correctly in the email headline that you'll get about a 10 percent lift in your email open rates just by having that first name in the subject line.
[00:16:28] And as I said before, the second way to get a very ultra specific email title is to really try to pull the value of what's in the email and explain it in detail. Three words at most in the title. So those were the four U's from The Art of Click by Fisher Glenn. Now the four U's, Urgent, Useful, Unique, and Ultra Specific, you'll learn in that book.
[00:16:58] He has a slightly different description for each one. Each, but I've given you kind of my interpretation applying it through email, but that book is fantastic. There is a link in the show notes. So head over to the toy coach. com forward slash 97 to grab the link in the show notes. You can grab this book.
[00:17:19] It's really a fantastic read. You'll about the Four U's and so much more. Before we move on, I do want to give a few bonus tips that I've picked up along the way about using special characters in your email subjects. Now, emojis have become increasingly popular in email headlines, and they are good, but don't overuse them.
[00:17:43] And keep in mind, if someone's phone or browser isn't updated with the latest software like yours is, they may receive your emoji as just a plain box. So an emoji can not stand in the place of a good headline. You still always need a good headline to be safe. But what also works great with email subject lines other than emojis are actually square brackets.
[00:18:15] Don't know why, but they have a higher open rate. So if you're sending a customer email to try to send them a 20 percent off gift card, you might want to try typing in [20% OFF] and finish the rest of your headline from there. There's something about that bracket.
[00:18:39] I don't know if it's that it makes the email feel sorted or just feel focused, maybe less overwhelming, but there's something about specifically that helps lift the email open rate. And finally, let's dive in to a few of my highest converting email headlines. Before we dive into this headlines, there is something you should already be wondering, my friend, and you should be wondering what I consider high converting.
[00:19:07] For anyone that doesn't know, converting really just means you put something in front of someone, you send someone an email in this case, and you're converting. And they take an action that you are hoping they will take. So that action could just be opening the email. And in this case, we are going to be talking about it as if that action is just opening the email.
[00:19:28] So you should be wondering what I think high converting is, but you should also be wondering what the industry norms are, what the industry standards are for email open rates. Okay. So let's go through some of those examples, and then I'll tell you what I consider high converting.
[00:19:46] Now, according to knowledgebase.constantcontact.com, there was a study that's been updated at the time of this recording very recently. And the study states that the overall email open rate for all industries averages 17. 57%. Now I know that's not a ton, but it is what it is. Now let's dive a little deeper and look industry specific.
[00:20:15] There are a bunch of industries listed on this site. So I'm going to share the average email open rates for retail and online stores that are D2C or direct to consumer, because that's the most important for the entrepreneurs out there. And then I'm also going to share the email open rate standards for consulting services, because after looking through all of the options, I really feel like this is going to be the closest category that's similar to the type of outreach you might do as an inventor offering your product for a license at a toy company. Okay. So for retail and that's brick and mortar and online wholesale and direct selling stores, the average open rate is 11. 63. I want to put some numbers to that just so that you can get a little bit of perspective.
[00:21:10] 11. 63% open rate means that if your email list is a thousand people, you can expect 120 of those to open the emails that you send them. For consulting services, management, marketing, and advertising. I know it's not really a perfect match for toy inventors, but that open rate is 12.41%. What I consider high converting is 30% or more.
[00:21:39] So the emails I'm going to share with you today have no less than a 30% open rate. Some have quite a bit more, and I'm going to share these emails and then we're going to break down the four U's and try to pull out the words that apply to each of those use and see if it makes sense. Right.
[00:21:58] Okay. So just as a quick reminder from the art of click the four use, we want to pay attention to our Urgent, Useful, Unique, and Ultra Specific. You can grab that link again in the show notes at thetoycoach.com/251. I pulled out three of my highest converting email headlines. The first one is, "Did You Grab Your Free Pass to The Festival of Licensing?"
[00:22:28] And it is every, I mean, this is a small detail that maybe you wouldn't think is that important, but every word is capitalized except for the two. The next item that is a high converting email is "Your Next Toy Opportunity is Just a TikTok Away" I remember writing that one and I remember thinking, "Oh, this is so good."
[00:22:50] So I'm glad to see that it made the list. And the third and final email with a high conversion rate that I'm going to share is "How Diverse Is Your Toy Company For Questions to Inspire A More Diverse Life." Love it. Okay. So let's break those three down. So we know what Urgent, Useful, Unique, and Ultra Specific are.
[00:23:13] So starting with, "Did You Grab Your Free Pass to The Festival of Licensing?" Now, when I looked over this headline, the word 'grab' stood out to me as the urgent term because 'grab' insinuates you're doing something very quickly. And it also insinuates that you're trying to get it from someone else. Like perhaps there are other people interested.
[00:23:37] And then let's move on to useful with the word useful. I see free pass because if somebody is maybe just out of school, they would see a free pass as a fantastic opportunity. And then we have to go on to the unique, what is the unique part of this email headline? So initially I'm thinking the real question format because so many email correspondents at this time were going out to promote the festival of licensing.
[00:24:11] And I do remember there, you know, it was just a lot of headlines, you know, call to actions, but there was no content that was designed like a question. And so I think that the question format itself for the entire email subject line is the unique thing. And last but not least, we have ultra specific.
[00:24:34] Now the ultra specific part of this headline in my mind is the, 'you', 'did you', that's the moment where we're really pulling in the viewer and saying, 'you'. "Hey, you right there." All we need is like an emoji pointing at them. If we could do that, but "Hey, you, you over there." So I would say the, 'you' is the specific, okay, let's move on to the next one.
[00:24:55] The next subject line is "Your Next Toy Opportunity Is Just A TikTok Away." So when we break this one up, let's start looking for that urgent word. And I believe that urgent word is just that urgent word is almost kind of a teaser of like, "It's only this much, you know, why can't you do it?" kind of an attitude is what this headline gives off.
[00:25:20] Like your next opportunity is it's just around the corner, you know, like all you have to do is go around the corner. Now after we look at urgent, we need to look at useful. So the useful piece of this headline is your next opportunity because that explains exactly what it is and why it's so valuable because this headline is telling you this.
[00:25:45] Podcast or this product, whatever it is, is valuable because you're going to learn more about this topic inside of it. Now let's move on to unique. And when I looked at this headline, I was looking for words that seemed unique. And I think the most unique thing from this headline At the time was TikTok.
[00:26:08] People were talking about it, but it wasn't as big of a conversation within our toy industry. So I do believe TikTok was that unique piece that helped to stand out. And finally, Ultra specific. So with ultra specific, it was a little bit harder with this one. You might say your next toy opportunity would be the specific area.
[00:26:33] Okay. Let's dive into the final subject topic. And that final topic is how diverse is your toy company? For questions to inspire a more diverse life. Now, I do have to say something I found in research while preparing for this episode was why the human mind tends to like odd numbers in list items, list blog posts, and lists like this over even numbers.
[00:27:01] I don't know how true this is, but apparently when you have even numbers, people feel as though you made an attempt to have the list, have an even number when it has odd numbers, it feels more genuine. Like the top five or the top three feels, uh, more real apparently. Okay. So back to this email subject line, "How Diverse Is Your Toy Company For Questions to Inspire A More Diverse Life?"
[00:27:29] So first I'm looking for the urgent, what's the urgent here? Why does this headline work? And I do believe the urgency actually comes from kind of a power word, 'more' and 'life'. Those words together do kind of create some urgency, especially as you're an older person. And then when we get into 'useful', we have to find out why this product is useful.
[00:27:52] That's when I look at questions to inspire a more diverse, because this is making it clear that this is just not about identifying what's wrong with your company, but this is about giving you questions to inspire a more diverse life or community. Next up in the four yous, we have unique and the way that this is used.
[00:28:17] Headline is unique is again, the format, because it has a question and then an answer. So it's actually the entire style of how this headline is written that gives it the unique quality. Finally, we move on to the ultra specific title, and that is really the first half of the headline. The half that says, how diverse is your toy company?
[00:28:41] It's very specific as asking you about your toy company, specific question, how diverse is it? Now, I want to say you can definitely utilize the lessons from these subject headlines for your toy or your product pitch. You want to try to use you in order to be more ultra specific or names if you have them in your email client somehow.
[00:29:09] And then you do want to use that urgency. If you have a sale, people need to know about it and they need to know when it's over. So you wanna make sure your email subject lines are really hyperfocused on letting people know what you have going on. Even if you share an email update about your doll that doesn't have a specific sale attached to it, and it's really just about the doll itself.
[00:29:35] Make sure that you're making it useful. What are they learning about the doll hyperfocus on that?
[00:29:41] Okay, before I give my summary of today's episode. I'd like to take a short break and give a shout out to Pearlie Tasker. Pearlie is an incredible student of Toy Creators Academy, and she is gearing up to pitch at Women Empowerment Day.
[00:29:58] Pearlie, I wish you all the luck in the world. Whoever has an opportunity to sit down with you is going to be blown away. I absolutely love the product that you're creating. It's amazing. So well executed and so innovative. Congratulations, Pearlie. Now, if you also want to find out how you could be a student of Toy Creators Academy, just head over to ToyCreatorsAcademy.com to learn more. Okay. Let's dive into the conclusion of what we learned today. To start. We learned that there are over 128 business emails sent and received by business professionals every single day. And we know now that that is 16 emails per hour. So if we want to stand out, we've really got to pay attention to these.
[00:30:44] For use the structure of a headline, you are going to go pick up the book, the art of click and learn all about it because the four 'U's are going to tell readers exactly what they get by reading the content. It's going to promise to be useful and give them some sort of value that they can apply to their business immediately.
[00:31:05] It's going to have a sense of urgency. There will be a sense that they should do this now rather than later. And that does not mean you should keep following up. Just let your initial email do that talking for you. As always, thank you so much for being here today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one.
[00:31:30] Until next week, I'll see you later, toy people. Thanks for listening to the Making It In The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade. Head over to thetoycoach.com for more information, tips, and advice.
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