Serasi

When doing email follow-up marketing, your emails have basically three challenges to win:

1. The emails have to be opened
2. The emails have to be read through
3. The emails have to get the reader to act upon your offer

Sure, the first challenge is a tough one and it’s also crucial to get it right as it affect all the rest of the challenges. You can’t get your emails read if they are not even opened. But I’m not going to get into details about the first challenge, as there are already plenty of tutorials and guides on creating a subject line that gets your emails opened. Instead, I want to give you some guidelines to write emails that get read.

Catch the reader’s attention

The first thing you have to do after the email has been opened, is to wake your reader’s interest. The most important thing to start your email with is a brief paragraph that tells the reader what they will be getting from your email.

But don’t reveal the whole thing at once. Give the reader something to wait for. Make him/her a promise: “In this email, I will tell you exactly… just read on.”

Answer their burning questions

There are certain questions you will have to answer in your emails. Here are the questions your recipients will have on their minds when opening your email:

• Who is emailing me?
• What does he want?
• Why should I care?
• What’s in it for me?
• What do I have to do next?

If you manage to answer all of these questions in every email you send, you will certainly rise your click through rate of your emails. Your recipients will soon learn that your emails are worth reading through.

Give them something valuable

The most important question to answer is “What’s in it for me?” If you can’t answer this question, you’d better not to send the email at all. You don’t want to waste your recipients time, do you?

It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but something useful. People love tips or other pieces of useful information.

Be casual and straight

People are busy - especially when reading email. Most of your recipients probably receive tens of emails daily. This means they don’t have too much time to spend per email. That’s why you should get straight to the point and skip the introductions.

Being casual is also a good idea. If you want to build a relationship with your recipients, write your emails as you would write to your best friend.

Give them something to wait for

At the end of your email, tell the reader that you are going to send another email in a few days. Give him/her a little sneak peak on the topic you are going to introduce and don’t forget to point out how he/she can benefit from it. This way you not only make the reader to open your next email, but also prepare the recipient to receive the information you are going to give.

Following these simple guidelines will ensure that your recipients will actually read the emails you send. Ultimately, this should also improve your click through rate and ROI from your email marketing campaigns.