How to Get Your Emails Opened and Read…

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One of the biggest challenges every marketer comes up against is the battle for attention. It doesn’t matter what business your in. If your prospect is not giving you any attention, your marketing can’t work.

Email is still the most effective form of communication (for now) for when it comes to driving targetted presold visitors to your offer. This is how you build relationships with your list, get traffic to your sales pages, pre-sell affiliate offers, promote video and audio content.

The problem is you’re not just in competition with your competitors. You’re also competing with your prospects’ work schedule, family commitments, American Idol, Lost, planning the next vacation, the latest crisis with Britney, Paris and Lindsay….plus 1000’s of daily advertising messages.

Everybody is busy; we have to be selective about what we watch on TV, the books we read, where we go, what we do and which e-mails we open.

Here’s some tips to get your emails opened and without fail…

1. Use a curiosity arousing subject line

The subject line of an email can be compared with a headline on a sales page or any other ad. What I mean is the subject line should be intriguing enough to make the individual curious about the content. This doesn’t mean “tricking” your reader into opening the email. You have to be able to follow up the subject line within the body of the email.

Here’s three examples of “curiosity arousers” I’ve use with good response…

“more good news for….” (email goes on to explain an additional bonus if they buy today)

“does this ________ secret really work for anyone?”

(can be used to introduce any strategy relevant to your topic)

“brilliant or bolony…what d’ya think?”

(invites your prospect into your conversation - of course the subject should be relevant to them)

A tip to make this easy is to adapt subject lines you come across that compelled you want to open the email and to test different versions. Copywriters build up huge collections of sample headlines they use to generate new ideas. This is called a swipe file. You should start yours right away with the three headlines I’ve just given you.

2. Provide relevant useful information

Go out of your way to provide quality content in addition to your promos. The best way is to provide useful information tied into a promotion. If you always strive to provide “stand alone” content that is useful whether people click on a link or buy a product or service.

The key is to provide value to people in addition to providing the next step which can be to purchase something.

Your readers will then enjoy reading your e-mails because they know they will have something to gain from them. However, it is important to remember that people are in a hurry. If they look at your e-mail and it looks like it will be difficult to read or time consuming they are likely to avoid it.

Don’t worry; there are ways to make even a long email easy to read.

3. Use an inviting layout

Use white space; break your content up into small blocks of information. Each block should contain no more than three sentences or three lines of content.

Another useful tactic is using bulleted lists. You might want to test numbering your lists against using simple bullets. It seems that if you say something like, “below you will find the top ten…” and you number the list, readers are more likely to read all ten items. Test it for yourself.

For every e-mail that has the purpose of selling send at least two or perhaps three that are simply information packed. Don’t be afraid to allow your personality to come through as this helps to bond with your readers. They will come to feel that they know you, and in turn, trust and like you.

4. Provide information that can be put to use…

Let your readers know that you are just like them, you struggle, you fail, you make mistakes, but obviously, you also do things right. Tell them how you have solved problems. This helps to build your reputation as a helpful person. Your readers are likely to tell others about you.

Always treat your subscribers with respect. Let them know that you value their time and their intelligence. Let them know that because they are your subscribers you will be doing things to help them. This includes offering information, giving gifts, and providing resources.

Remember every visitor to your site, every email address you collect represents a real person looking for solutions to problems, and ideas to make their life better. If you make the effort to look after people, you’ll be rewarded over time.

In summary, the keys to getting your emails read are an “impossible to ignore” subject line and useful content all written in an easy-to-read format. Treat your readers with respect and prove your worth to them by consistently providing information they can use. You will find that your readers will appreciate the messages and your click-through rates will multiply.