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10 Steps to Creating Emails That Get Results

Guest post by: Jessica Swanson

Article Overview: Discover how to create powerful emails that get big results for your small business.

10 Steps to Creating Emails That Get Results

I remember the good ol’ days of email marketing.

I would send out an email and 75% of my prospects would open it. (Can you imagine?)

Then, along came the spammers, the CAN-SPAM laws, the smartphones and the competition. And suddenly, email marketing was a whole different animal.

In today’s noisy and cutthroat email environment, research suggests that only about 11.4% of our emails are even opened. (Ouch!)

But, let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Email is still a powerful and low-cost ways to effectively communicate with your prospects.

Here are 10 steps to writing emails that get results:



1. Decide on ONE call to action.



Every time that you send out an email, you should ask your prospect to do something: visit a website, watch a video, read a blog post or make a purchase.

However, make sure that you are only asking them to do one thing. Including multiple calls to action just leads to confusion.

2. Create an intriguing subject line.

If you want a higher percentage of your emails opened, then your subject line must be either exciting, interesting or arouse curiosity. In addition, the subject line should speak directly to your particular prospects’ needs, interests or problems and contain less than 50 characters or spaces.

3. Get personal.

Studies show that using your prospect’s first name in the message of your email can change your click-through rate from 0.8% all the way to 3%. So, get personal!

4. Hook them in.

Once your prospect has opened up your email, your job isn’t finished. Spend time writing a captivating first paragraph that hooks them in and keeps them reading.

5. Keep it short.

Your prospects have short attention spans, so don’t drone on and on. Keep your emails short, sweet and to the point.

6. Insert a clickable link.

Ask your prospects to click on a link that entices them to take action.

7. Add a P.S. to your emails.

The P.S. portion of your email is the 2nd most read section. So, use a P.S. to reinstate why it’s important for your prospects to take immediate action.

8. Send out more emails.

Many small business owners don’t want to overwhelm their list with too many emails. Emails sent out every day register a bounce rate of only 0.4 %. But, emails sent out only once a month generate a bounce rate of 5.1%

So, don’t be afraid to communicate with your prospects frequently.

9. Send out emails in the morning



Most emails are opened between 7:00 and 10:00 am. After noon, the open rate begins to decline.

So, get your emails out as early as possible!

10. Send your emails on Sunday.

Data shows that 12.2% of emails sent out on Sunday are opened. The lowest open rates are on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Who knew?

Make sure to use these 10 powerful tips to help your small business emails generate a higher email open and click-through rate.

*The data for this article is based on a study from MailerMailer study of 977 million email messages sent to MailerMailer customers.

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Article Tags: email marketing, shoestring marketing, small business marketing



Related Forum Posts
Re: Awesome Resource: Instapaper - So far the only thing I use the filters for is to send all the safelist emails I get to a folder. It currently has over 386,000 emails in it. This is a really good tip though. I need to start utilizing it. Emails eat up too much of my time right now.
Re: Awesome Resource: Instapaper - [quote="billgelwick":3jk3d6mn]This is a really good tip though. I need to start utilizing it. Emails eat up too much of my time right now.[/quote:3jk3d6mn] It's probably the biggest single productivity issue for most entrepreneurs!
Re: Can you outsource your product launch? - Yes that what I am talking about. Creating a buzz for your online product launch basically. Is this part of what you do?
Re: Social Media & Digg, Google, MySpace, and YouTube - Hi Kathy, What I meant about it being worth it was in the sense that I described. Creating multiple accounts for various sites and posting and ranking your own stuff. It's very time consuming to say the least. I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there that has done this and thinks it's beneficial.
Re Thinking Smarter - Hi Beat, Thanks for sharing this win. It's inspiring to hear about. Can you imagine what our life (and our businesses) could look like if we continued to open up to our creativity? Every day becomes an exciting journey for us and even those around us. Happy "Creating"... Tami


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