Email Marketing

Making Sure Your Emails Grab Your Reader’s Attention

Making Sure Your Emails Grab Your Reader’s Attention Leave a comment

This post was written by a guest author, if you are interested in contributing on Opportunities Planet visit the write for us page!


grab your reader’s attention via email

Oh Emails. So old, yet so good!

Just a few decades ago postal services dominated the world and we could only wish for emails, but today, they are on equal footage with chat or a cellphone!


Email is the oldest way of online interaction we use. Although there are a lot of other ways to communicate with your audience (different social media channels, live chat, instant messaging, etc.), over 2.8 billion people use emails as of 2015, which basically makes email the most used communication channel ever (for comparison, Facebook has around 1.5 billion active users).

Given this fact though, there are two sides to the story: email may be the most used communication method in the world, but this also means that people get a ton of different emails every day.

After putting in time and effort creating a killer email, the very last thing you want is have it sit unread in consumer’s inboxes. Here are a few tips to help you deal with that just fine.

All of those tips are also true for your newsletters by the way, although there is a bit more to it.

Think about the reason

Before creating the email, take the time to think about why you are writing that email in the first place, what do you want to accomplish with it? For example if you are introducing a new product and you want consumers to get familiar with it, then the email should exactly reflect that purpose.

Remember all those times that you opened an email and thought “Why on earth am I even receiving this?” That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Make sure consumers know why they receive your emails.

Make it personalized

Every person, especially a consumer, wants to be unique, not a part of an automated system. This is why making your emails personalized is essential. If the email doesn’t contain at least the name of the recipient (nowadays even the name is not enough, try adding some more stuff, like company name, position, occupation, etc.), it’s definitely not going to be noticed, let alone read.

Also keep your email content casual and respectful. Don’t try to impress consumers by referring to them by their surname and complicated, official wording. That won’t work. Keep it conversational, but know your limits, too much personalization can be dreadful, and make sure you sound professional.

“Hi Mr. Jonson,

We are excited to tell you about a poker tournament that will take place in our hotel today at 7:30 PM. As a true poker fan, we invite you to join in the fun with your wife somewhere around 7:15 if you have no plans for today!

Best of luck,

Hotel administration”

This email sounds pretty neat. Nothing out of place and the personal part will definitely be appreciated. Now watch this.

“Hi Mr. Jonson, 42, born in South Carolina May 6, 1978,

We are excited to tell you about a poker tournament that will take place in our hotel at 7:30 PM, just about the time you return from your business meetings generally. As a true poker fan, who knows how to win or lose thousands of dollars in a single night like you did 2 years ago in New York last year, we invite you to join in the fun with your wife somewhere around 7:15 as you have no specific plans for today!

Best of luck,

Hotel administration”

Well, to me this much personalization doesn’t sound fun, which will definitely make Mr. Jonson uncomfortable. This is what you should NOT do.

Keep it short and to the point

This refers to everything in your email, including subject line, preview text and actual email. Medium sized subject lines (40-50 characters) result in higher open rates, which is what you should be aiming for. Emails are meant for quick communication and information transfer, not exactly great for reading 2500 word articles.

Don’t forget about the preview text. It might only be around 50-70 characters long, but it ultimately reflects the whole content of your email in one or two sentences. Also 84 % of users use a preview pane, which makes kind of a huge deal. Invest time into making a succinct preview text and you will notice an instant improvement in your open rates.

Finally, keep the content and formatting of your email nice and clear. Avoid using all capital letter words and exclamation marks, even when you are offering discounts. Shouting about it very loudly isn’t going to convince consumers to buy your product, instead it will probably irritate them.

Test the email by sending it to yourself or a friend a day or two after putting it together. Look at the subject line, preview text, actual content – everything. Does the email look interesting to you? Do you or your friend want to open it? If yes, then you are getting there. If you don’t feel like it, why would consumers even bother then?

If you promise something, make sure you deliver it

This is a very important step to take. If your preview text or subject line promises a 50% discount on the next purchase, you better make sure you deliver the promise to your consumers. Don’t make an email around another subject and shift smoothly to the discount part, start straight with the discount part. If you have anything more to add, better send two different emails.

Lastly, do not trick your consumers. Ever. It will earn you nothing than a bad reputation, unsubscribes or being marked as spam, and there is a good chance that you will lose the trust of that person forever.

Don’t be discouraged if your emails don’t get high open rates right of the bat. If a person didn’t open a few emails, but still didn’t unsubscribe, it means that he or she doesn’t mind getting emails from your company, you just need to find the right content and offer to make him or her curious enough to open them.

By Charles Dearing

This post was written by a guest author, if you are interested in contributing on Opportunities Planet visit the write for us page!

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