Experienced email marketing strategists may become used to the extensive attention the email "holy trinity" of "subject lines," "creatives" and "images" get. After years of testing "subject lines," "creatives" and "images" to get better "subject lines," "creatives" and "images," the email marketer finds that conversion rates are still dropping, so what's she to do? More creative testing, more images, more of the same thing?

If you, just like me at times, find yourself dreading more of the same thing you may be what I call the "bored email marketer."

Here are three techniques that may help you break away from email marketing boredom:

1. Reset your priorities to focus on the “why” not the “how”

According to a Merkle Interactive Services 2009 study (as quoted by emailstatscenter.com) 52% of email recipients have images turned off in their email reader. More than half of your customers won't see that carefully crafted creative when first opening the email. They will see the headline and the first few links that are most prominently placed.

So why would your customer take the action you want her to take? Why would she care?

Focus on giving your customers a good reason to take the action you want them to take. Make a decision to not put creative first this year and focus on developing meaningful concepts that resonate with your target audience and make sure those concepts get copy that's darn-well writter.

2. When you run out of concepts to test dust off concepts from a year ago.

In 2007, before Al Gore's "fight for green" became mainstream, we developed a campaign to test if "going green" was a stronger web usage driver than "convenience." "Going green" failed the test. A year later, after Gore won the Nobel Peace prize and his global warming message became popular, we re-tested the same two concepts against each other and this time "going green" won.

We learned an important lesson - trends change very fast, and we have to change with them, even if it means going back to an old concept. It may be old to the email marketer, but new to our customers.

3. Do the exact opposite of what you've been doing.

When you can't move the needle enough with new tests it may be time to mix in something that's the complete opposite of what you've been doing so far. If you've been unsuccessfully testing images, throw in a no-image market-cell. If most of your emails have been short, try testing against a long email. If your communication language has been formal, test against informal copy.

I'm not advising here doing away with tactics that have been proven to work, nor am I advising throwing away common sense. What I'm advocating is challenging ourselves to break away from the status-quo, to get out of that unproductive comfort zone.

Doing the opposite of what you've been doing may not prove the success you were looking for each time, but it will open up new perspectives, trigger new ideas, freshen up your strategy and keep you from becoming the bored email marketer.

Subject lines are the primary drivers of email opens. There are a few proven characteristics of a good subject line: conversational, short, targeted, personalized, clear, simple, unassuming.

Let's talk about an email I received today from Lettuce Entertain You, with the subject line "iPhone app available for frequent diners." This is a great discussion case, because it's fairly short, clear, simple, and conversational.

But is it targeted and unassuming? Would non-iPhone users open this email?

In Aug. 2009 Apple was falling short of 15% mobile market share. What if the stats perfectly aligned and only 15% of LEY customers who receive the email open it?

I have an #android device and I almost deleted the email unopened before I was inspired to blog about it. And then I thought, what would have taken for LEY to get me to open the email?

I may have opened it if the subject line said, "mobile app available for frequent diners." That's a non-targeted yet unassuming approach. But putting iphone in the subject line sealed a 0% chance that I would open it (if we don't take into account my professional curiosity). And if non-iphone users did open the message out of curiosity, they were welcomed by a "good news" message... for iPhone users only.

What would the subject line have to be for you to open the email?