Getting Your Marketing Emails Opened and Why So Many Marketers Fail at the First Hurdle
Isn’t it a pity that there is just so much rubbish sent by email every day? It seems that people are content to fire off any kind of nonsense and send it out in an email. It is just one of the downsldes of having a free global email system. Imagine how much more care people would take if they had to pay so send their words of wisdom to the masses!
Sadly internet marketers are not immune from sending out substandard emails and this means that many people now treat email with suspicion. Even your opt-in list may be wary of your emails so you want to create a good impression with them from the outset.
The very first hurdle to overcome is getting people to open your email in the first place and this is where so many marketers fail time and time again. The headline, or subject field of your email, serves only one purpose and that is to get the email opened. It must catch your reader’s attention and make them want to open up to see what is inside.
Don’t go mad with the headline though as this will only annoy your customers. If you choose the headline: “Why You Will Die Tomorrow” you will certainly grab your reader’s attention but they not remain as a customer for to much longer.
Instead you might want to use: “How The Seven Tips in This Email Will Save You Money?” or “Why Your Online Business is Missing a Trick?” instead. They will not scare the reader to death but they should get them curious enough to take a look at what you have to say.
Other good openers include:
Your five minute guide to…
Ten top tips to …
Three simple strategies to…
Don’t miss out on this free tactic to…
Always keep things short and simple and, above all else, make sure that the main body of your email actually delivers on the promise made in the headline.
If you have a ‘top ten tips’ headline then ensure that the email contains ten relevant tips. Don’t make do with eight or nine; the headline promised ten so that is what you must deliver.
Questions are also very good ways of grabbing attention in an email headline but ensure that they are relevant to the subject you are talking about.
Question-type headlines have another great advantage in that they help to target the right people to your email.
For example if you ask: “Are You Fed Up With Your Dead End Job?” then you are expecting the answer “yes!’
On the other hand anyone who answers “No” is unlikely to even open the email but this doesn’t matter as they would be unlikely to buy the product it may be promoting or benefit from the advice it may contain.
Also don’t be afraid to experiment with different styles and types of headline. If a particular email does not have a good open rate then try sending the same email again a few days later with a totally different headline and see if it makes a difference.
Finally if you can tie your headline into something which is topical or in the news at the time of writing this can be very powerful too as you will be tapping into a theme which may already be on your reader’s mind.
I know of one internet marketer who nearly always uses a headline based on a red-hot current news topic to great effect. He then spends up to half of his email content musing and commenting on the news event in question before cleverly linking this news event with the product he is offering.
Spend time getting the headline right and back it up with good quality content and you will build up a loyal following amongst your subscribers so it is important to give this issue very serious thought indeed.
