We talk a lot about recruiting affiliates on this blog and with good reason! We estimate roughly 75% or more of an affiliate manager’s time is spent recruiting new publishers into their program. The most common way to attempt to contact potential new partners is through email. Unfortunately, email is also the easiest thing in the world for people to ignore. So with all that said, how do I get their attention?
Below are 3 catchy email subject lines to use when recruiting affiliates.
“Oops!”
“Oops!” is a classic and there’s a good chance you’ve seen it before at some point. It has no relevance to anything, but it gets opened more than half the time. It’s very glaring to see in an inbox so it’s perfect for catching people’s attention. When people see “oops” their mind automatically goes to the thought that “Oh! Someone messed up!” As humans, we’re naturally curious about such things. By playing into our basic instincts here, we can greatly increase the open rates for our recruiting email campaigns. I recommend busting out this subject line if your first 2-3 emails haven’t been responded to.
“Where Is The Love?”
I like to use the “Where Is The Love?” email subject line if “Oops!” doesn’t get a reaction. “Where Is The Love?” is based around a similar idea to “Oops!” People are not used to seeing a phrase like that come through their inbox. It’s something that your eyes will immediately land on if you’re skimming through a bunch of messages and marking them for deletion. Like before, it’s likely curiosity gets the best of you and you’ll open the “Where Is the Love?” email just to see what it’s about. It’s also kind of funny and sometimes if you can get someone to chuckle a bit, they will be more likely to engage with you.
“Permission To Close Your File?”
The final catchy email subject line to use when recruiting affiliates that I want to share with you today is “Permission To Close Your File?”. This line isn’t as fun as the last two, but it serves an important purpose for you. You should utilize this subject line when you’re at the end of your rope on a prospect. I’ve recommended previously attempting to contact someone at least 12 times before giving up on them. This is the subject line for that 12th and final email. It provides some closure for you and gives the prospect one more chance to reach out and see what you’re offering. The most likely scenario is that after being ignored 11 times, you’ll get ignored one more and you check this prospect off your recruiting sheet.
On the other hand, I have had some luck receiving engagement from this subject line. About two-thirds of the replies will confirm they are not interested, but that other third simply just missed my other messages and now they want to hear more from me. When people see “Permission To Close Your File?” they think a door is being closed on them and occasionally their FOMO (fear of missing out) will get the best of them.
I hope that you found these subject lines helpful and you give them a try. Good luck with all your recruiting efforts and feel free to email us or comment below with any comments or questions.
Also, if you do use any of these subject lines, let us know! We would love to hear from you!
What works best for me is a little more straightforward. Brand name + collab? Or a specific product niche or theme + collab
Hi Stephanie! Thanks for reading my article. I 100% agree with your comment and I actually use subject lines exactly like that when first reaching out. These others mentioned in my post are for when you’re not getting any response and you need to think outside the box a little bit.
Stephanie, I agree with you as well.
Both managers and affiliates like me are busy these days and would really appreciate short subject lines. I think most annoying thing is when affiliate managers try to cover up the real reason behind their email.