In this guide, we're focusing in on what we've learnt at Aussie Angels about what gets your investors (LPs) attention, excitement, and ultimately conviction to invest in your deal.
Let's get stuck in...
Basics
Short, specific, personalised email subject lines are the best. Period.
Subject lines serve to achieve Open Rate, first and foremost.
If recipients don't open your email, then they won't do the thing you are asking them to do.
Your primary aim should be to get them to open your email!
This means your email needs to stand out among the countless other emails that people receive in their inbox every day or week.
In order to stand out & grab attention, your email needs to:
arrive at the right time (according to some the best time might be Tue @ 9am - 12noon, but you might want to also consider your own syndicate & deal lifecycle, and maybe other deals or events going on in your network)
visually stand out (🍰 emojis can be used well)
have a compelling reason for the recipient to open it (use WIIFM)
Your secondary aim should be to lead into the "call to action" (CTA) within the email, eg. read, attend, invest, etc. This is typically measured by Click Through Rate (CTR).
There isn't too much to explain here, other than you want the email subject line to be congruent with what the email is about, and what it is asking you to do.
So just avoid being vague or misleading in the subject line, and please avoid chucking in 3 or more divergent CTAs into your emails! 😱
Let's talk about goals...
Goals
First and foremost, you need to understand what goal you are aiming to achieve.
This will naturally vary, depending on which phase of the deal cycle you are in (eg. upcoming deal announcement, deal launched, deal filling up, deal closing, etc.).
As an example, we find the Founder Q&A session is one of the most important (if not the most important) moments in your Deal lifecycle - it is where we see the most number of investors get to a yes by hearing directly from the founders, and then they invest (usually within the 24-48hrs surrounding the event).
So this being said, if your deal has already launched, and you are driving your syndicate toward a Founder Q&A, then our advice would be to set your goal on maximum number of investors that RSVP to the Founder Q&A.
It's always a good idea to have a specific KPI goal in mind, eg. # of LPs to RSVP, or % of invited LPs to RSVP.
Then you drive all your effort around that point.
Let's take a look at some examples for inviting investors to your deal Founder Q&A.
Acme Founder Q&A ❌ BAD
Why is it BAD?
Not personalised ❌
Not specific ❌
No call to action (CTA) ❌
But it is short ✅
Your chance to meet Acme founder Jane this Thurs lunch ✅ GOOD
Why is it GOOD?
It includes "your" and founders name "Jane" ✅
Tells you what "meet" and when "this Thu lunch" ✅
While not explicitly a CTA, it does aim to create FOMO by stating "chance" implying you get something if you open & act on this email ✅
It is still short enough ✅
Bonus points would have been if we could fit in a remarkable fact about "Jane" the founder, but this could have made the subject line too long ⚠️
Next, let's talk about subject lines by Deal phase...
Deal Phases
Your goal will vary by each phase of your Deal lifecycle, explained below (with examples of good practice in each).
Note: [AA] below means these metrics can be tracked on our platform, otherwise not.
Upcoming Deal
🎯 Goal: get LPs to notice new deal coming soon
📊 Metric: Email Open Rate
📝 Approach: Short, sweet, exciting! Aim to build anticipation, and re-engage your LPs.
✅ Examples:
Get excited: XYZCO launching soon.
Upcoming deal! XYZCO sneak peak
Sneak Peak: Check out XYZCO coming soon
Deal Launched
🎯 Goal: get LPs to open deal (& invest)
📊 Metric: Email CTR > [AA] Deal Opened
📝 Approach: Share your deal highlights to build excitement & LP conviction (but only what's in the deal note).
✅ Examples:
Just landed: You're invited to invest in XYZCO (Seed)
New Deal launched, check out XYZCO
Time to get in: XYZCO (Seed)
New Deal! You're invited to invest in XYZCO (Seed)
Founder Q&A (recommended)
🎯 Goal: get LPs to attend the Founder Q&A (event)
📊 Metric: Email CTR > RSVPs to event
📝 Approach: Share your passion for the founder/s, promote exclusivity & start to stoke FOMO. You want as many people to show up as possible (this is a pivotal conversion event)!
✅ Examples (including at top of page):
You're invited to meet the founders: Max & Baxter from XYZCO
Register now for the Founder Q&A session with XYZCO
Today: Come meet the founders of XYZCO Max & Baxter
Deal Progressing (or Allocation Filling Up)
🎯 Goal: get LPs to invest in deal
📊 Metric: Deal Opened > Investment Requested
📝 Approach: Time to turn up FOMO, but make sure to stay honest (this is also where you want to share the Founder Q&A recording).
✅ Examples:
Filling up
Don't miss out
Allocation almost exhausted
Did you miss this?
Get your investment in
Deal Closing Soon
🎯 Goal: get (fence sitting) LPs to invest in deal
📊 Metric: Deal Opened > Investment Requested
📝 Approach: Push the FOMO to max level, again be sure to stay honest (closing is a good opportunity to enforce real or artificial deadlines - both can be honest).
✅ Examples:
Last chance
Closing tonight
A bit of room left
Deal Closed
🎯 Goal: celebrate (& reward) LPs participating in deal
📊 Metric: Email Open Rate
📝 Approach: Keep your invested LPs informed, and be grateful. For everyone else, this is a chance to highlight they missed out (respectfully), while also last chance at possibly getting a straggler or two across the line (we can usually still let them in if you want & there is time).
✅ Examples:
XYZCO successfully closed!
XYZCO oversubscribed, thanks everyone!
There it is. We really hope you find this helpful! 👌🏻
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Want to learn more? Great, you can! 🙌🏻
Please know that this short article cannot be comprehensive enough to cover every possible best practice for writing great email subject lines (and besides there are a ton of example guides out there from the best, eg. MailChimp, Zendesk, Hubspot, Campaign Monitor, Salesforce, and countless others).
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Got any feedback? We love it! ❤️
We're always learning with you, so if you have any examples or experience that differs from the above, please let us know via hello@aussieangels.com 🙏🏻