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tranfree issue 39 - 03 September 2001
The Subject Line is the Key...
...that Gets Your Email Opened.
By Alex Eames
The subject line is the most important part of an email.
Particularly an email where you are trying to sell your
translation services.
Your subject line's job is to get the email opened. If it's not
opened it won't be read. If it's not read, it's not filed and you
won't get any work. 
Make sure the subject line of your email is as compelling as the
headline of an article.
The number of people who send me emails with subject lines
like...
- Freelance translator resume
- John Smith's CV
- freelance translator application
...it's incredible. Yawn, yawn. It's almost an automatic reflex
to delete those emails. I've even considered setting up a filter
to do so automatically. If I didn't occasionally study
translators' CVs to check out the state of things, I probably
would delete them automatically.
You see, I don't need any more freelance translators at the
moment. This may be the case with an agency you are applying to,
but if your email gets noticed they are more likely to file it
away for future use. This is your long term investment.
Agencies Get a Lot of CVs
(and most of them aren't very good)
What you may not realise is that agencies get a lot of CVs
from freelance translators - particularly if they've just
advertised. So you have to find a way to make yours stand out
from the crowd.
The surest way to get yourself deleted without being read is to
be too obvious! "Freelance translator resume" should not be in
your title. Agency staff get a lot of them and they're often not
really interested.
I mention all this because you probably never had the opportunity
to be in the position of one of your clients. So you may not know
how your clients think. In fact that's one of the main reasons
for tranfree's existence - to explain to translators how agencies
think and operate.
You may not have realised that agency workers don't actually
enjoy processing your CVs? Some of you probably think that their
very reason for existence is to process your CVs?
I even had one covering letter recently which said something
like...
"I enclose my CV for your edification"
...which I found rather curious. According to my Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English, to edify is...
To improve (the mind or character of)...........
I can quite categorically state that I have never in my life been
edified, from reading anybody else's CV.
I may have had a good laugh at a few of them 
I may even have thought that some of them are rather good and
well put together. But edified? If it wasn't funny it would be
arrogant.
Would You Give Me a Job if I Copied Someone Else's Letter?
Another classic is when people send me an exact verbatim copy of
the example application letter from...
How to Earn $80,000+ per Year as a Freelance Translator
...you wouldn't believe how many of those I get - despite warning
people, in the eBook, not to copy it. I do understand why people
do this - because it's an example of an English marketing text in
which there are no errors. Not only that, but it is proven to
work.
The point is if you're sending this letter or email out to
agencies, how many other copies of the exact same text have they
already seen before? How many of them will have read my eBook
too? Since most agency workers eventually wish to go freelance,
the numbers may be a lot higher than you think.
Even if they haven't, if they read the same email quite often
from different people, they'll know it's been copied from
somewhere. Do you think that makes you look good in their eyes?
They'll know it's not yours, and they'll...
 ...
...delete you straight away.
Let's have a bit more thought and common-sense about how we
approach agencies!
Back to the Subject
The subject line is probably 50% of the importance of the email.
So how much time do you spend on it? If your subject line
doesn't immediately entice the recipient to open and read your
email, it won't get read!
If it doesn't get read, the contents doesn't matter very much
does it?
"What d'you mean?" ...I hear you ask...
"I always open the emails people send me. Don't you?"
No I certainly don't. Every morning I get 5 to 10 emails with the
following types of subject lines
...
-
Earn $2000 a month just by sending emails
-
Viagra, no prescription required
-
Enlarge your penis GUARANTEED
-
XXX Teen pics - ONLY JUST LEGAL
-
I LOVE YOU AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!!.
-
UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE. EARN $$$$ WHILE YOU SLEEP!!
-
This Will Get You Excited!
-
75,000+ Shocking Celebrity Photos
...interesting that most of them deal either with genitalia or
getting rich. Obviously the two most powerful ways people can be
parted from their money.
So you see, I get quite used to deleting emails without
opening them. 8 clicks and the above emails all disappear.
I'm not the only one who gets a mailbox full of crap. (Not to
mention the hundreds of viruses people unwittingly send me by
email. Imagine if about 30,000 people had your email address in
their address book!)
Most agencies get a lot of bogus email too. If you're not careful
about your subject line, you'll be deleted too.
Not Too Straight, Not Too Tricky
The main problem is that you can't be too obvious and you can't be
too deceitful either. If you outright trick somebody, they'll be
annoyed and they'll delete you.
So you have to pick a subject line that is fairly neutral, but
relevant to them. I don't recommend...
Enlarge your penis GUARANTEED
...for a start, it limits your audience by half (unless they know
someone with need of this service). 
There is an extraordinarily successful subject line which is in
the eBooklet that comes with tranmail ...
http://www.translatortips.net/tranmail.html
...but to be fair to those tranmail purchasers who have paid for
this, I'm not going to reveal it here. If you want to know it,
check out the tranmail page...
http://www.translatortips.net/tranmail.html
It's such a good subject line that people get exceptional
results with it [as long as they follow the other guidelines].
Even people who buy tranmail do sometimes choose to go their own
way and do things differently. That's OK. If you never
experiment, you never find out what works best. If you never make
any mistakes, you never make anything.
But the really wise among us learn from other people's mistakes -
that's why there is an information industry.
Sticking to a Pattern
Sometimes, sticking broadly to a particular pattern, without
copying it word for word, can be the best way.
Figure out what they want, and give it to them
Simple heh?
If you want the rest of the story on how to write an immensely
successful email - that gets your name in the agencies' databases
- check out tranmail ...
http://www.translatortips.net/tranmail.html
...I've given you an important hint, but there's a lot more to it
than that.
I don't want to see so many "Freelance Translator Resume" subject
lines in future (but somehow I know I'm going to, from non-
tranfree readers).
So I would urge you to seriously consider tranmail because it
works. It shows you how to be in the 10-20% who don't get
deleted. If you don't believe me, check out the testimonials from
satisfied and ecstatic tranmail clients...
http://www.translatortips.net/tranmail-testimonials.html
Recent Applications
Let's look at the last 10 subject lines of emailed applications I
received from translators...
- Language pair English<>Greek
-
application and resume
-
Employment
-
Freelance Translator
-
english-german freelance translator NAME SURNAME COUNTRY
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(no subject)
-
New Translator!
-
TRANSLATION WORK
-
Experienced Freelance Translator
-
Polish Translations
These have all been received within the last couple of weeks.
Number 6 is a joke. Someone either forgot or didn't bother with a
subject line. Not Good. Ironically though, I had to open it to
find out what it was. But still not good!
If you look at all the others, they are all far too obvious in my
opinion. They all specify exactly what the email is and they
all invite deletion.
It's Easy Really
Find a subject line that will get your email opened, and write an
email that will be read.
The remaining secrets are in the tranmail manual...
http://www.translatortips.net/tranmail.html
Alex Eames is the founder of translatortips.com,
editor of tranfree and author of the eBook...
How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a Freelance Translator
http://www.translatortips.net/ht50.html
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