MARKETING FEATURE
How To Write An Email That Gets Opened And Responded To
If your email campaigns are falling flat , follow this step-bystep guide to wordsmithing your way to a great response rate . BY ROBIN ROBINS
Hearken back to the year 1998 , when I moved to Nashville for a sales position at a marketing firm I had been working with at CGI Systems in Philly . I had become the resident expert on email and digital marketing for both the firm I worked for and my clients . At that time , I easily secured a near 100 % delivery rate and 40 %+ response rates to the emails I was sending . Sick .
Not so much today . Opt-out rates are still relatively small , with the bigger problem being spam filters and inbox overwhelm . People lose interest FAST when they ’ re processing HUNDREDS of emails every day . So , if you want to have any chance of getting your email opened and , MORE IMPORTANTLY , CLICKED ON AND RESPONDED TO , you have to put some real thought into how you craft your message , which is what I ’ m going to cover in this article .
But before I get into the WRITING of an email , know this : If you are genuinely spamming people by pumping out emails to people who don ’ t know you and have never given you permission to email them , stop it . Now . A responsive email list is largely gained by ONLY emailing people who WANT to receive your messages ... who have “ opted in .” I ’ m not getting into this because I ’ ve covered how to build a responsive email list multiple times .
If you ARE playing clean and ONLY emailing a permissionbased list , here are the core elements that go into a successful email campaign :
1 . The sender : Do they recognize the name ? If not , you ’ ll get a lower response and may get a bump in opt-out rates .
2 . The format : In most cases , you want to send an email in a “ pretty ” graphic template but instead have it look like a personal one-to-one communication . There are exceptions , like when selling physical products ( clothing , for example ) or if the subscription is for a newsletter ( like MSP Success ). But even then , you do NOT want the graphics to overwhelm the message , pushing the lead , CTA ( call-to-action ), and link below the fold . ( The “ fold ” is the point on an email or website that you have to scroll down to see . The term comes from the newspaper industry .)
3 . The subject line : This is the headline of your message and is extremely important to getting your email opened and read . People skim the sender and subject line and decide to open and read it based on that FIRST .
4 . The lead : This is the opening sentence of your email .
5 . The offer or CTA : What are you writing them about ? What do you want them to do ? Reply ? Click ?
6 . The link : If you want them to click , you have to provide a link that is ABOVE THE FOLD , not buried down in the email .
Now , let ’ s dig in a bit more with a few of the above . Given this is about WRITING emails , I ’ m going to focus on that and skip getting into the details of the sender and the format . Enough said above .
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