When it comes to writing emails, there are a number of core ingredients essential for success. Add the perfect blend of these elements and your email will be much more likely to be read.
Today, emails fly around more than ever before. People use email to communicate for everything. With a busy person receiving so many emails a day – sometimes in the hundreds – it is more important than ever to stand out to the recipient. So, what is the perfect recipe for email success, and how can you replicate it yourself?
In brief, your recipe for consistent email success is:
- Objective and strategy
- Quality content
- Design
- Personalization and segmentation
Core Elements
A successful email needs all of these elements to appeal to the reader. It needs to sound human, appear professional, and be reader-focussed. You need to make the recipient feel like the email warrants their time. We’ve explored the essential ingredients below.
1. Objective and strategy
Objectives and strategy serve as the foundation of your email. Having clearly defined objectives from the outset allows you to convey a consistent message to your audience. Businesses email their customers for many reasons: welcome, reengagement, newsletter, discounts… However, it is important to consider the underlying message for sending each email. What are you hoping to achieve? How will this benefit your audience? These are both questions you should be able to answer upon sending an email.
2. Interesting and Useful Content
Your email is not much use without content. Carefully crafted email content is what allows you to stand out from the crowd, what allows you to demonstrate your knowledge, skills or interest, and what allows you to seduce your audience into action. This is your prime opportunity for conveying your message to the reader. Make it count.
3. Eye-Grabbing, Catchy Design
Making your emails more appealing with some impressive design will improve the experience for the reader. We would all rather read a beautifully crafted email with complementary imagery and call-to-action buttons. Presentation of your email is one of the first things your audience sees. Do it right and make sure your email content gets read.
4. Personalization and segmentation
Give your emails a more personal touch by personalizing content where possible. This small touch lets your audience know that you’re thinking about their needs. By dividing up your email list into various segments – age, gender, purchase history etc. – you can more effectively target each group.
Segmentation helps you to appear to be more in touch with your customer base, and shows that you care about developing a relationship with them. Continually analyse your data to learn more about your target market, and customize your communication further. Consider asking yourself the following questions:
- Does my audience need to receive this email?
- Should my audience be segmented?
- How will the readers react to the content?
- Is the email personalized with recipient names?
This is a simple framework of the core elements of a success email. You’ll also need to ensure everything is consistent with your brand.
Click here to learn about the best- and worst-performing words in email subject lines
