This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

Ever had the feeling that your emails or prospecting letters are never read – just binned? Well here’s a neat little tip for getting people’s attention.

“We’ve got some great news about your car” said the headline from the letter from Mitsubishi Motors, my local dealership. And they were talking about my 5 year old Mitsubishi Shogun. Boy I was just about to phone them to find out what the good news was, then suddenly realised what was going on.

I was being sucked in by the oldest trick in the book.

Living here in rural Gloucestershire and being fairly close to the River Severn which tends to flood quite often, we’ve always had a need for a 4 wheel drive car. In fact the lanes and roads are pretty swollen right now. But we refused to buy a new one recently opting instead for a smaller more carbon footprint friendly car. But I still get to use the Shogun myself and I’m quiet happy with it.

The dealership is trying to get me to trade it in for a new model and I almost got sucked in.

Very clever marketing…

But how can this help us in selling? Well the simple answer is to learn to focus on your subject line of emails or letters. Learn to be different, daring and to get attention with one or two carefully chosen words. Customers get hundreds of emails each day and dozens of letters and we all learn to scan them. Email subject headers are vital. People rely on them exclusively to decide whether to read or delete.

We do our National Lottery by direct debit every week and if we win (which is extremely rare), they send an email with the heading “Good news about your ticket”. Now you can’t see me for dust when I get these, heading off to go online to check my winnings. Usually just £10!

Another great heading to use is “Bad News”.

Curiosity will make most people read what you have to say. The first line of your email could read something like “Bad news is always followed by good news…and the good news is that we have developed a wonderful opportunity to”

A tad corny but you do have to be different to get noticed on email subject headings.

So get thinking about your subjects to claim your customer’s attention.

And let’s hope the floods here in Gloucestershire don’t wreak havoc again. We’ve had enough water here to last a lifetime. Don’t worry for us though, as we’re on a hill, but let’s spare a thought for all those who might be affected here in Gloucestershire and the West.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.paularcher.com, where you’ll also find his own sales blog, too!