You can get really clever with your email subject line to increase open rates, but if the body copy and topic is inconsistent (or makes the subject line feel misleading), your clickthrough rate and long-term reputation will suffer.
Treating every lead as if they’re ready to buy might help you squeeze some additional sales out of the current month or quarter, but that will be at the expense of helping those customers buy down the road. Push them too hard now and they might not trust you later.
You can convince a wary prospect to sign up with a really low barrier to entry offer, but if they weren’t a good match for your product or service to begin with they’re going to waste a lot of your time, never be happy, and hurt your reputation with others who might have been happy, long-term customers.
You can cut a lot of corners and do a lot of interesting things to make your numbers look better today, this week, this month. But if you plan to be in business well beyond that short period of time, be sure you’re not doing harm to your long-term reputation, response rates and sales opportunities in the process.
