How to Write Better Emails

This article is about how to write a better email. You'll learn 7 steps to writing emails that grab attention and get people to do what you want.

Let's dive in.

Understand your recipient

The very first element you should consider is your email receivers. Who are they? What's their attitude like towards email? What's their email style?

You might not know much about them personally but different professions tend to adopt different email attitudes. Frontline staff at a bank do not tend to like sophisticated emails. Bloggers might not like long emails but people in management positions seem to write longer emails.

Some people like to be communicated via email. Others prefer to talk in person whenever possible.

The more you understand your recipient and their email style, the better chances that you have to write emails that get read.

Know what you want (and how to achieve it)

Why are you emailing? What action do you want your receiver to take? Is it just for their information?

In other words, what is your call to action (CTA)?

Knowing what you want is another step closer to writing an email that gets read and/or acted on. If you want your recipient to click on your link, you know that you must include the link and use an enticing text to invite them to click.

Inviting people to your training course? Maybe a quick email with a link to more information could probably increase the chance of their joining you.

Here are a few great tips from Campaign Monitor to optimize your CTAs in emails:

1. Use action verbs. Examples include "read the story," "get the discount," and "try it for free."
2. Make a CTA text/button large and clear
3. Keep your email short
4. Use the first person
5. Create urgency. Here are just a few phrases you can use to create urgency in your email: Buy now, today only, RSVP - Only 3 spots left, and shop now.

How can you increase the chance for people to read your FYI email? You might want to begin by inviting them to "read it" Or ask questions like "Can you help me with this?"

My recommendation is to have a clear CTA even it's an FYI email. You might also want to place your different types of CTAs in different parts of your email if it's a long copy email.

Write a compelling subject line

Almost half of the email recipients open emails based on the subject line alone. A compelling email subject line should:

• Create fear of missing out. However, a word of caution here - you must be honest here. If you say you're going to cut the registration to your course tonight, do it. If you say, you'll increase the price tomorrow, you must be true to your email subject.
• Create curiosity. There are various ways to do this: asking questions, be weird, telling your recipients to not open your email, going against general acceptance on a subject, and so on.
• Be funny. "Is email productivity only for nerds?" could be inviting for a prospect. Make your subject line funny when you can.
• Make them feel proud of themselves. If your email is about an entrepreneurship training course, an email subject line like "You deserve to earn more than this" could be compelling.
• Make easy something difficult. Here are a few examples: Increase your website traffics ten times in two days, learn a language in a month, How to read a book in an hour.
• Address their pain. "Procrastination, no more" "Use these productivity apps to beat procrastination"
• Be straight forward. If you want to share your best email productivity tips, your subject line could just be "Best email productivity tips."

Whatever you use to increase your chance that people will open your emails. Be true to the promise you make.

69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line.

Keep your email short and concise

I loved writing long emails. I wanted to give my recipients every single detail they need to know in my email. In fact, I treated my email as a sole medium of communication and that everything should be communicated in writing.

It could be ok if you're a lawyer or other serious professions.

But in most cases than not, keeping your email short and concise increases your chance of achieving your CTA.

If it has to be lenghty, you should consider breaking your email down into different sections and sub-sections. Use large fonts or capital letters for the heading of each section. You might also want to use different font colors if your email recipients read rich text emails, which most do nowadays.

Proofread before sending it

Proofreading is an extra step that you should take especially if you are sending an important email. And it is more than just checking spellings and grammar.

Here are 7 more tips to better proofread your email:

• Check names. People identify themselves with their name. For some, it is a big mistake if you get their name wrong. So the first thing I'd recommend for proofreading is to make sure that you get your email recipients' names right.
• Check your tone. Maybe you were angry a few minutes ago when you started writing and could cause your email to feel harsh. It could be too funny when in fact you want your email recipients to take it seriously. Don't skip this especially if you feel emotional when you were writing your email.
• Double-check important information. The date and time, if any, must be correct. Others could be the link you mention, the attachment, and the steps to take for an instruction email.
• Fine-tune it. Is your instruction clear? Reread it out loud. Is it easy to understand? And if you want your recipients to act on your email, make your CTA crystal clear: Read more, download this, buy now, or book now.
• Check how compelling your CTA is. Do you use an action verb? Is it clear and dominant enough to get attention? If it's urgent, do you state that? Could it create enough curiosity for people to click or ask for more information? Bold the text. Make the button large. Use different font types and sizes. Ask yourself how you can make your call to action more compelling.
• Check the attachment/link. Attachments and links are usually an important part of the email people send yet we sometimes forget it. In fact, if you don't proofread emails, you tend to forget your attachment more often than those who do. I make it a habit to attach a file immediately after I have written the line where I ask my email recipients to check out the attachment.

These could sound like a lot but it will be worth it when you send an important email.

That's it.

Want to learn more about email management?

Check out my email productivity guide right here.