That title wasn’t a dramatized number — in 2020, there were actually over 306.4 billion emails sent every single day.
Let that just blow your mind for a second. Every single day there were hundreds of billions of emails flying through the ethers of the internet...for 365 days straight. 🤯
And that number has been rising dramatically over the last 10 years.(2)
Only increasing its demands, email marketing is one of the most effective ways to develop a long term relationship with your subscribers. It gives them an insider’s POV in areas of your life or business that others may not get the opportunity to see.
Now as a small business owner, you understand how vitally important an email marketing strategy is with long term organic growth — And if you don’t, click here to learn more about it.
But with all of those emails coming through your customers’ inbox, it can feel overwhelming for them to discern which deserves their attention and which they’ll archive without ever looking at.
So, what can you do as a business owner to make your emails so compelling, so captivating that your reader practically sits on their phone refreshing their Gmail impatiently waiting for your daily letter?
Write an effective and well formatted email, that’s what you can do.
And in this article, I’ve broken down the essential components of an attention-grabbing email so you can save more time and write better emails in the long run.
What makes up an effective email?
There are a few things that make some emails stand out more than others. I’ll show you the breakdown of an effective email in this section, along with practical examples of how to use them in your own emails.
First and foremost, the best way for you to genuinely connect with your subscribers is to be genuine, personable and open with them.
Yes, they signed up for your free masterclass, but that doesn't automatically mean that they’re ready to buy from you!
Subject
If you take away only one piece of information from this entire blog let it be this:
Your subject line is the most important piece of your entire email.
Why is there so much commotion over subject lines in the online marketing world?
Simple: if no one opens your emails, you’ll have a 0% chance to convert them into customers.
When crafting your subject line, try to keep a few things in mind:
Keep it intriguing — use a cliffhanger, make a bold statement, show them something weird you recently came across
Use personalization — including their name will automatically instill a sense of trust between you and your reader
Be succinct — while there are 998 characters you can use in your subject line, no one will be able to read that entire thing from their iphone mail app
Whatever you decide, try to steer clear of spammy jargon like, “FREE, BUY NOW” or anything like that. Using words that correlate with selling can often be placed into the spam folder without the reader even knowing — and that isn’t where we want our emails to be.
Preview Text
Preview texts are the 140 characters that live directly underneath the subject line in your email inbox.
Another opportunity to entice your subscriber to open your email, most of the time your preview text will go hand-in-hand with your subject line.
It can also be used as a way to pique further curiosity out of your reader, like this one from one of my favorite email marketers, Tarzan Kay:
While it’s never required that you write something in the preview text, it is highly recommended and a great way to increase engagement. If you choose not to write a preview, the first few sentences of your body copy will be placed there instead.
Sender Name
When you’re scrolling through your inbox, how likely are you to open something from a name you don’t recognize?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
When you send an email on behalf of your small business, make the sender name instantly recognizable. Use your company name.
Body
Your body is where you address a few different things :
Talk about whatever the subject line is about. This should be one of the first things you do in your email. Don’t make them wait for it
Format format format
Be as short and succinct as you can be — people’s attention spans are short and you want to be integral with their time.
Sign off
Similar to the sender name, your sign off is another area for you to personalize your brand's appearance in emails.
You could sign off your emails with the name of someone on your marketing team or even the CEOs name; using names of real team members makes them feel more like an email from your long lost friend rather than a sales pitch.
PS & PPS
P.S. at the end of an email stands for Postscript. It’s original Latin roots are postscriptum which translates to, “written after”.
Countless studies have shown us that 90% of people are more likely to read the P.S. before the actual email, so you better make sure it’s worth their time to read.3
It’s also a place where people tend to skim what they’re reading. Understandable, with how hot TikTok & Instagram reels are right now it’s no wonder our attention spans have dropped down to 6 seconds.
A lot of business owners strategically place their newest offers here, or along the lines of a free training, discount code, or another free item of perceived value.
It’s a friendly reminder that, “hey although I love talking to you I am a business and I do need to sell my services”
Now that you’ve got the basic layout for your next kick-ass email sequence, here are a few tools for email marketing that’ll save you time and hassle:
Don’t be fooled — no business is personally sending out batches of emails from their personal gmail account.
Ain’t no one got time for that — instead try using an email service provider (ESP) that stores and organizes your subscribers and gives you the option of automating your emails (meaning they’ll send automatically when you tell them to).
A few beginner friendly ESPs are:
Are you currently using an email service provider not mentioned above? Tell us what it is in the comments!
Wanna learn more about email marketing?
So… if you were feeling hesitant before, you know now that email marketing is alive and thriving.
As with any piece of copy, mastering the craft of writing emails is something that takes a tremendous amount of time and practice.
Analyzing which emails have performed better than others, _ which subject lines are more likely to be opened, etc…
If you’re reading to start writing your very own emails, check out my blog post all about writing a captivating welcome sequence for the subscribers that are brand new to you and your brand.
References