Scan time: 2-3 min / Read time: 5-7 min
Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸♀️🦸♂️
An email course took three weeks to build.
Day 1 went out. Five people opened it. Day 2 went out. Three people opened it. By Day 5, the list had gone quiet.
The content was solid. The problem was the subject line nobody opened.
There's a two-prompt fix that takes 15 minutes.
⛳️ Here's the scenario
Meet Alex.
Six years in corporate HR. Built a 5-day email course to help new managers have difficult conversations without losing their team's trust.
He spent weeks writing the content. Each day had a framework, a story, a step-by-step action.
But his subject lines?
"Day 1: The foundations of good management communication" "Day 2: How to handle conflict at work"
He'd send each email, check his stats the next morning, and see the same thing.
12% open rate. Sometimes less.
People signed up for the course. They just weren't opening the emails.
He started wondering if the content was the problem.
One Saturday morning he was at the dog park — coffee in hand, watching his dog tear across the grass — when he sat down on a bench next to a quiet woman with a stack of papers on her lap.
She was marking something up with a red pen.
Turned out she'd spent 25 years writing email copy for some of the biggest online publishers in the world. (Alex had to stop himself from asking for her autograph.)
He pulled up his email course dashboard on his phone and showed her his open rates.
She glanced at his subject lines and rewrote the first two on the back of a receipt in about 90 seconds.
❌ What Alex had: "Day 1: The foundations of good management communication"
✅ What it became: "The 3-word phrase that stops a conflict before it starts (Day 1)"
Same content. Completely different pull.
"How did you do that?"
She leaned back and explained three things — slowly, like she'd done it a thousand times.
💡 "First — your subject line is the only thing most people see.
They're looking at 200 emails in 30 seconds. Your subject line has one job: give them a reason to click. Not to explain what's inside. To make them want what's inside."
💡 "Second — there are four things that make someone open an email.
A lot of value for very little time. A lot of value for very little cost. A solution to their problem without much effort. A result they want, right now. Pick one of these for every subject line you write. Every single time."
Then she slid the receipt across.
"Two prompts. Run them in order. You'll have subject lines for your whole course — plus a preview line for each one — in 15 minutes."
Here's what each prompt does:
▶️ Prompt 1 — Build your options: Takes your course outline and your audience, then writes three subject line options per day — each one using a different proven hook — so you have real choices to pick from.
▶️ Prompt 2 — Lock in the winner: Takes your chosen subject line and sharpens it, then writes the preview text line — the short sentence readers see next to the subject line in their inbox — so the whole package is ready to send.
Alex opened his AI sidekick and got to work.
🎯 Step 1: Build your subject line options
⏱️ 8 minutes
This prompt takes your course outline and your audience and gives you three subject line options per day — each built around a different hook that's proven to get opens.
A "hook" here just means the reason someone clicks. There are four that work: a big result in little time, a big result at no cost, a solution with no effort, or a desirable outcome right now. Each option the AI writes will use one of these.
You are an expert email copywriter. Your job is to write subject lines
for a multi-day educational email course.
My course topic: {e.g. How new managers can handle difficult conversations
without losing their team's trust}
My target audience: {e.g. New managers in their first leadership role}
Number of days: {e.g. 5}
Course outline:
Day 1: {e.g. The 3-word phrase that stops a conflict before it starts}
Day 2: {e.g. What to say when someone pushes back on your decision}
Day 3: {e.g. How to give feedback without making people defensive}
Day 4: {e.g. The one thing great managers do before a hard conversation}
Day 5: {e.g. How to close a difficult conversation and keep trust intact}
For each day, write 3 subject line options.
Each option must use one of these four hooks:
1. A lot of value for very little time
2. A lot of value for no cost
3. A solution to the reader's problem with minimal effort
4. A result they want, available right now
Rules:
- Maximum 15 words per subject line
- Write like a message to a friend — no formal language
- Use numbers where possible
- Be specific — vague is useless
- Each option must use a different hook from the list above
- Do not preface subject lines with "Day X:" — just write the subject line
Label each option clearly:
Day 1 — Option A (Hook: value for time): [subject line]
Day 1 — Option B (Hook: value for no cost): [subject line]
Day 1 — Option C (Hook: result right now): [subject line]
The AI came back with 15 subject line options — three per day, each one pulling on a different angle.
Alex read through them out loud.
Option C for Day 1 stopped him cold.
"How to end an argument before it gets personal — in one conversation"
That was exactly what his readers wanted. He'd just never found the words.
But a great subject line alone doesn't finish the job.
The preview text — the short sentence readers see next to the subject line in their inbox — can double or kill the click.
That's Step 2.
📬 Step 2: Lock in the winner and write the preview text
⏱️ 7 minutes
This prompt takes the subject line you chose from Step 1 and does two things: sharpens it if needed, then writes the preview text — the short sentence that appears next to the subject line in the reader's inbox, giving them one more reason to open.
You are an expert email copywriter.
My chosen subject line: {e.g. "How to end an argument before it
gets personal — in one conversation"}
My target audience: {e.g. New managers in their first leadership role}
What this email actually teaches: {e.g. A 3-step framework for
redirecting a heated conversation before it damages the relationship}
Do two things:
1. Review the subject line. If it already uses specific numbers,
a clear promise, and informal language — keep it exactly as is.
If any of these are missing — rewrite it with those elements added.
2. Write 3 preview text options for this subject line.
The preview text appears next to the subject line in the inbox.
Its job is to add one more reason to open — without repeating
what the subject line already said.
Each preview text option must do one of these:
A. "Trust me" — add a credential or proof point
B. "Without this obstacle" — name a fear the reader won't have to face
C. "And this outcome too" — add a second desirable result
Rules:
- Maximum 10 words per preview text option
- No hype, no exclamation marks
- Specific and plain — reads like a friend whispering something useful
Output format:
Refined subject line: [subject line]
Preview A (Trust): [preview text]
Preview B (Obstacle): [preview text]
Preview C (Outcome): [preview text]
Alex ran the prompt for Day 1.
Here's what changed:
❌ Before: "Day 1: The foundations of good management communication"
✅ After: "Refined subject line: How to end an argument before it gets personal — in one conversation"
"Preview A (Trust): Used by 3,400 managers in their first 90 days"
"Preview B (Obstacle): No awkward silence. No burnt bridges."
"Preview C (Outcome): And keep your team's respect at the same time"
He ran it for all five days in about six minutes.
By the end he had a complete set — every subject line sharp, every preview text adding a second reason to click.
He went back and updated all five emails before the next send.
🏆 Alex's results
Before:
Subject lines that described content nobody had a reason to open
12% open rate across the whole course
Day 5 had fewer opens than Day 1 — the course lost people by the end
After:
3 strong subject line options per day — plus polished preview text — ready in 15 minutes
Open rate climbed to 41% after the new subject lines went live
Day 5 had more opens than Day 1 — readers were finishing the course
Total time: 15 minutes. Not 3 weeks of guessing.
His AI sidekick surfaced the right hooks and wrote the preview text. Alex made the final call on which ones to send. BOOM.
Two prompts. 15 minutes.
Every day of your email course gets a sharp subject line and a preview text line — ready to drop in and send.
That's it, my fellow outliers!
Yours 'proving you don't need a team to build something big' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️