Email marketing is a bit of an art form. While it’s important to promote your products and services whenever possible, it’s just as important to avoid overwhelming or annoying your potential customers. That’s why the emails that you do send out need to be of great quality. Nearly every person out there is inundated with numerous emails every single day. The challenge is to somehow make your email stand out among the crowd. Keep reading for a few tips on how to do just that by improving your sales emails.
A lot of the success of a sales email is within the subject line. That is, after all, the first thing that is seen. It’s what must grab the attention, and entice the reader to click through. If it’s too long, too boring, too complicated, or too vague, it’s very likely that it will be deleted before ever being opened.
According to MailChimp, an email marketing service provider, the best email subject lines are short and descriptive, and give the reader a reason to continue reading. They have found that subject lines should be 50 characters or less, so obviously, shorter is better. Also, they discovered that there are three words that should always be avoided: Help, Percent Off, and Reminder. These words all seem to negatively affect open rates.
It’s also important to note that the attention span of most people is somewhat limited these days. Everyone is pressed for time, and reading a long email is simply something most don’t have the time to do. Keep your message concise and clear. Keep the majority of important information above the fold – meaning, above the point where readers will need to scroll to see the rest. Keep paragraphs short and write in a bulleted or numbered list format whenever possible.
Link back to your website, blog, and social media sites. Also, use links to avoid including excess information. Don’t repeat something that has already been covered in a previous blog post or article. Simply send readers over to that piece through a link. This will not only save you space, it will keep readers interacting with your business longer.
Before sending out any emails, make sure that you are sending them to the right consumer at the right time. You should develop a detailed buyer persona for each of your different target buyers, and craft your emails around those personas and where they are in the buying process. With each lead, try to determine where they best fit. Send your emails based on this information, so that you aren’t sending an email heavily promoting a purchase to someone who is in the beginning stages of their research and is nowhere near ready to buy.
Within your email, give consumers something they want. Provide links to free content offers, send out coupons, or include a newsletter sign up. Everyone loves to get something for free, so offer them something you know they would find value in. However, avoid using the word “free” in your subject line. This word alone can often trigger spam filters, and your email may never get to the intended recipient.
It’s also important to offer users an easy way out. Although you obviously want to avoid it, sometimes your emails simply don’t fit in with what a consumer is wanting. Make the option to unsubscribe available and easy to do. With every email their should be an unsubscribe button. Make the process too difficult, and you may end up upsetting some consumers.
By keeping these things in mind, you will be able to craft an email that is useful, relevant, and wanted. Of course you will never have a 100% success rate – today’s consumer is simply too busy for that. Even if the subject line is enticing and they truly have an interest, they may just be too busy to click through. But if you do your part and make your emails as attractive as possible, you will likely see better results than you have in the past.
To read more on this topic, download our free eBook "Modernize Your Sales Process".
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