When was the last time you joined an email list where you wanted to open every email? Chances are, it’s been a while.
Everyone knows they need email marketing, but that doesn’t mean they do a good job of it. The number of emails out there that just promote products and offer little or nothing of value to the reader is ridiculous. Your emails shouldn’t be part of that group.

What Makes People Open Your Email

The first thing your subscribers see when your email lands in their inbox is the subject line. If the subject line is dull, overly promotional, or otherwise unacceptable, your emails will be sent to trash without being opened.
It’s not just the subject line that matters in email marketing, though. Your history is also a big part of the decision to open or trash the email. If you have been consistently helpful and provide great information that your readers can use, they’ll likely keep opening your emails, regardless of the subject line.
Focus on providing excellent information every time, and make it worth it for your subscribers to open those emails.

What’s Inside: Anatomy of an Awesome Email

Is your email interesting and informative? If not, you may want to revamp it a little.

1 – Pre-Header

Many email clients actually post part of the first line so that it’s visible before the subscriber opens the email. Make this pre-header just as enticing as your subject line to get people to open the email.

2 – Greeting

Your greeting should be personable and friendly. Even if this is a business-to-business email, a pleasant greeting is always welcome.

3 – Table of Contents

If you’ll be going over two sections in your email, it’s a good idea to include a table of contents so people can see at a glance what they’re interested in.

4 – Body Sections

These are the sections where your main content will go. You may just offer one single section with the news you wanted to convey, a hot tip for your readers, or a brief summary of a new post that you want them to click through to, or you can combine all of these in one email.

5 – Links

Make it nice and simple for people to click through to your website by including lots of links in the email. Obviously, it shouldn’t be too spammy, but keep in mind that people don’t want to scroll back up to the top of the email to find that link to your blog post, so including it at the top, middle and end of your message is fine.

6 – Bonus

Have a bonus tip to share? Do that at the end of the email. This could also be a link to a video or toolkit that you know your subscribers would enjoy. Offering a little something extra at the end of your emails will help encourage people to read to the end every time, in hope of that bonus.

7 – Sign Off and Call to Action

Your signature line should be friendly, yet professional and should offer readers a way to get in touch with you. A call to action goes well here, too. Let them know what to do next, be it click through to your site, share something on Pinterest, or join your group on Facebook. If you don’t tell them what to do, they won’t do it.

Conclusion

Well-done email marketing will include plenty of actionable information and get your readers excited about opening emails from you. Train them to expect great things and deliver every time to see impressive results.