Writing a good email is art mixed with science, with a smidgen of common sense thrown in. Your emails should be conversational, but not salesy. People are tired of being “sold to”.
They want information and help with their problems. If they get that from you, they’ll buy your products. If they get one whiff that you’re only there to sell them, they’ll unsubscribe.
The way you craft your email is crucial. Doing the following three things can cut down on your unsubscribes and help you stay in your readers’ inboxes.
1. Make the subject line as attention-grabbing as you can–but it better relate to the product. This is not to say you can’t connect flying green monkeys to computer software. However, if you put it in your subject line, you better be able to link the two and make the reader laugh, think, or buy…otherwise they are going to be annoyed.
2. Don’t use the reader’s name more than twice. When you talk to someone, you don’t say, “Mark, you know how it is, Mark, when you turn on your computer, Mark, and see the blue screen of death, Mark…”.
That might be a tad exaggerated, but you’ve seen emails that overuse the name. I suggest once in the salutation and once in the body or closing, at the most.
Some email experts suggest using the name in the subject line, some do not. When reading emails, I delete those with my name in the subject if I don’t know the sender well…I assume it’s a sales pitch. If it’s an email from a list I’ve been on for a while, it doesn’t bother me…because we have a relationship.
If your subject line is crafted well, you may not need to use names. Try split-testing and see what happens!
3. You are cultivating trust. Make sure you know it and show it. You are positioning yourself as an expert in the eyes of the reader. Sound professional, but let your personality shine through. People want to get to know you and they want to trust you.
Don’t lie to your readers–it will trip you up every time, and then the trust is gone. Yes, you can be informal, but keep in mind your relationship with the readers.
Your list is the goose that will lay your golden eggs. Don’t jeopardize what it can do in the long run for some short-term success.
Happy Marketing!
