Have you ever peeped into the junk folders of your email inbox? From hairbrushes to climate petitions to updates about new features, you probably have thousands of unopened emails waiting for your attention — pretty much in vain, right? They’re a vanity on the most part because they don’t add any value to your life, and even when you have tons of free time at hand, there’s nothing special about those slick emojis or all-caps subject lines that would perk up your interest.
That’s the case with a majority of business emails today. Even the most satisfied customers and email subscribers often start ignoring whatever they’re sent because it simply fails to grab their attention or convey something possibly helpful to them. On the other end, even some of your most compelling copies may come across as too banal or overbearing for a specific campaign. All of this affects the type of responses your emails receive, which is why it’s important to write response-worthy emails.
Why Do People Respond to Some Emails But Not to Others?
Your copywriter might be suffering from writer’s block, or they may not find enough space to move around in the box you’ve placed them in. Whatever the reason is, it ends up affecting your email quality. This chain continues in a cycle:
Poor email quality > Low open rate > Low conversion > Low revenue > Limited investment options > Substandard copywriters > Poor email quality
So yes, that one poorly planned email comes full circle in ruining your campaign in the longer run. However, not all emails have to be this way. If you think of the emails that you respond to the most, you’ll find that most of them have one unique characteristic; all of them are personalized. It’s almost like the sender wants to talk to you.
With this, we can deduce that the primary success determinant is the tone of your email. You have to style the email in a way that makes your audience feel like part of a conversation instead of just passive receivers of your content. For example, I can build a perfect profile of my vegan neighbor and send him a highly targeted email about new vegan dog food. However, if he’s more interested in feeding his dog regular meat, the message won’t resonate.
Knowing your audience’s concerns also makes it easier to build a sense of priority in your emails. You may push them with limited-time offers, bonuses and rewards, cheat sheets, and other exclusive details that give your audience a feel of importance and the idea that you care for their needs and requirements.
What Emails Do Most Receivers Respond To?
Now, if is email marketing is this simple, then why don’t we see more sales emails that get a response? Why do we still have to mark dozens of emails as spam or unsubscribe from the list of so many companies? Why are our client responses so scarce and poor?
Quite often, it’s because you’re overdoing your email marketing strategy. More often than not, people get their email techniques wrong and end up getting blocked instead of responded to.
There are three critical concepts for writing high-value emails:
- Being a compelling and convincing narrator
- Keeping your thoughts concise
- Stating your email’s purpose with as much clarity as possible
If you think about it, most of us retain the silliest, most absurd advertisements and emails better than straightforward ones. That’s the goal here, too. If you can get your tagline into your prospect’s head, you’ve made the cut!
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How to Make Good Emails a Habit
In a world with growing consumer awareness, brand competition, and environmental concerns, it may be challenging to understand what’s compelling to your audience members. You have to be clear on your organizational foundations and how you channel them into this specific email. Here are some email writing tips that can help:
Tip #1: Write Down Every Idea Without Judgment
Have you ever suppressed a pun because you thought it was too vague for the other person? Email pitches need those unspoken anecdotes, those controversial ideas, those customer encounter details, and all other random ingredients that cross your mind while writing a pitch. Even when you think a point doesn’t go well with a particular email, try not to discard it in the initial draft. Great ideas take time to materialize, so you should give those cringe-worthy lines a break before you blank them out.
When you’re done with the basic draft outline, you may find ways to add value and perspective to the whole matter using your wit, and then you can ditch the elements that don’t make sense. If there’s something too genius to let go of, you can keep it for a follow-up mail, too.
Tip #2: Use Data To Your Advantage
Have you heard about the difference between hard and soft types of data? Hard data is what we refer to as facts, figures, statistics, and other potentially grounded data. Soft data is rooted in beliefs, values, perspectives, behaviors, opinions, and other debates surrounding hard data. An expert email copywriter tries to blend both types of data into a compelling, data-backed story that can get even the hardest-to-convert prospects to consider your deal.
You also need to ensure that the data you’re using adds value to the copy. Simply stating ‘Inflation rose by 20% last year’ may not add much depth to your email. But if you write ‘The 20% rise in inflation contributed to more primary school pull out a, putting our generations to come at a grave risk’, this gives you an angle to work with and build a unique perspective.
Tip #3: Write Emails In a User-Friendly Format
Emails often tend to be boring when they have long walls of text, seldom punctuated by any paragraph breaks. Try to keep your email as compact as possible. Around 150 words sound ideal for a sales pitch, but if you can’t make it, then 200 words are the maximum limit. You may also use email formatting tools, such as bold, italic, underline, highlight, bullets, colors, headings, links, paragraph breaks, and so on.
Tip #4: Use What Works—Throw Away What Doesn’t
After you’ve launched your campaign, you may wait a while to test the responsiveness and success of your new, improvised copy. This could take days, weeks, or even months before you can substantiate the data you collect and form coherent findings from it. What stays and what leaves are two of the most vital elements that you’ll sort between at this point. Although you’ve worked hard for this copy, it may not work out 100% with all your prospects. That, readers, is what will help you plan your next campaign.
Based on the responses you receive, you can gauge what your audience liked, what they didn’t like, and what they ignored in your email. If any data stats have since changed, you may change them, too, and replace the old figures with newer ones to reuse this copy.
Key Takeaways
Writing truly compelling sales emails that get responses is tedious yet fun. You get only seconds to capture your prospect’s attention with your subject line and about a minute before they give up on your email and send it to the junk folder.
So, your entire recipe on how to write prospecting emails boils down this: to a conversational monologue of 150 words comprising a blend of soft and hard data, all summed into a fluid vocabulary with a minute-long reading time ending with a subtle CTA.
If you need a helping hand writing sales emails that convert leads into long-term business partners, contact the email marketing experts at Sapper Consulting!
