5 Steps to Writing the Perfect Email

What’s in an email? It’s more than letters on a screen—it’s an introduction opportunity, it’s a relationship builder, it’s a selling tool. There’s certainly a lot at stake when it comes to crafting emails that speak to your customers and prospects, but it really doesn’t have to be hard when you follow a few simple steps when crafting your emails. Over the years, we’ve found that following these steps makes writing customer (and personal!) emails a little bit less painful and easier to replicate on a regular basis. If you’re looking for a little guidance in the email writing department, follow these five steps to help you write the perfect email.

Step 1: Define Your Topic

You might only have one chance to connect with the recipient of the email, so it’s vital that you make sure your intent and message is clear. I know, you want to share your company story, tell them about all the experts you have at your company, highlight all the great things your other customers have to say about you, AND try to sell them something. Save all that for your website. Or your blog. Or a 20-page company brochure. Wherever it goes, it most definitely does not belong in your email. They’ll never be able to cut through the clutter of all that content. Unless you work in retail, it’s too difficult to try to sell multiple ideas and solutions in one body of work. It’s distracting, it’s work for the customer or potential customer, and it’s a lot of work for whoever is drafting your emails. Make it easy on yourself (or your content person) and carefully define what your topic or goal is.

For example, if your company has a webinar series that you want to promote, don’t attempt to tell people about the webinar series, give all the bio information about your company, and try to sell them on other solutions you have to offer. Instead, use the email to concisely share what the webinar series is about, and why they would want to attend. It seems simple, but all too often, we don’t want to miss our chance in front of the customer to share all of our capabilities and miss the obvious opportunities to provide our customers genuine value in our email messages.

Step 2: Think About the Recipient

Put yourself in the shoes of who is receiving the email. Would you ever read a 500-word essay in the form of an email? We’re going to guess not. There is a time and a place to provide tons of details to people, and typically, email is not your avenue for that.

If you have a ton of details that you think would be relevant to your customers and prospects, include those details as links to learn more or documents to download or as blogs to send them to. As an added bonus, you can track customer interaction with those “learn more” type links or documents to help your sales team identify hot prospects to connect with. When you’re thinking about the recipient of the email, also think about the questions they have and how your email is answering them.

Back to the webinar series example – say your webinar series is about home improvement tips and tricks. Your email should 1) clearly identify that as the topic and 2) tell them what they will learn. Address their potential concerns, such as how long will the webinar take, or what skill level do I have to be at, will I leave the webinar with practical knowledge that I can immediately apply? Those are valid and easy questions to answer in the body of your email. Your text could read, “Join us for a one hour beginners’ home improvement webinar. Our experts will guide you through weekly home improvement projects that skill level can tackle. Attend our webinar on September 1^st at 10am CT to kick of your next DIY project today.”

It’s not going to win you a Pulitzer, but it will give your customers and prospects the vital information they need to make the decision to engage with you.

Step 3: Make Lists

Whenever possible, turn your text into numbered or bulleted lists. Think about how carefully you read emails…. YOU DON’T! It’s why you should try to incorporate lists whenever possible. They’re easy to write and even easier to skim and do a great job of helping you highlight the most important points you’re trying to convey. They also serve as a good check of how well you initially identified the main point of your email. If your list is all over the map, you may have defined your topic a little too loosely.

Step 4: Create Your Call-to-Action

Every email, business related or personal, needs a clear call-to-action. If it’s difficult to identify, you’ll likely lose their interest. So, ask yourself, what do you want them to do once they’ve read your content? “Register for the Webinar,” “Download the Brochure,” “Purchase a Warranty,” “Call Me,” or “Set up an Appointment” … Whatever the call-to-action might be, it should be clear, concise and action oriented whenever possible.

Step 5: Write Your Subject Line

After you’ve completed your team’s editing process, it’s time to go back to the beginning—the subject line. Did you think we forgot about one of the most important email elements? Absolutely not.

This isn’t necessarily how everyone does it, but from our experience, we suggest saving the best for last. Why is that? Because once you’ve take the time to draft and edit the content of your email, you should end up with a very clear vision of what might draw your customers in to keep reading.

Speak to the problems your solution might provide answers to. Provide the who/what/where/when/why details for an event you’re hosting. Tell them what you’re going to teach them. The content of your email can definitely be useful in dictating the message behind your subject line. Best practice suggests aiming for a subject line with 50-75 characters. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but certainly gives you a good baseline to work with.

Writing emails doesn’t have to be a chore. Keep these five simple email writing tips in mind, and you’ll become a pro in no time!

If you have Eloqua and you need support with email strategy or building emails, please contact us!  We love helping companies transform their marketing automation.