“Why don’t people read my emails?”
Here are a few case studies of businesses that send great email…that people read.
You’ve just finished dragging-and-dropping the crap out of a new email template, you thought long and hard on that catchy subject — you even added little emojis! You’ve pressed send…theres that lump in your throat again. After all that…a measly percentage of your list actually even opened! — probably your Mom and a couple “supportive” Facebook friends…too close to home? Even less actually read the whole thing!
So how the heck do you get people to read!!?
Get personal. Real personal.
Your subject line and email content should sound like it’s actually coming from a human and is meant for a human! A company that nails this is FreshBooks; recently the digital bookkeeping/invoicing company sent out an email inviting users to test new features. Here is the first couple sentences:
Hi John,
My name is Jeremy, I lead design here at FreshBooks. The FreshBooks Design Team has been hard at work designing some new and exciting features. To ensure these features work in the best way possible for you and your business, we’re hoping to gather input and feedback from customers just like you…
There were a couple of things that were super effective about this email.
a. the email “from” name was Jeremy Bailey (FreshBooks) — this is much more personable and intentional than “Freshbooks Robot Email System”. It also makes the receiver feel like there is an important person at this big company, reaching out to them individually.
b. the format was natural; “this is me”, “this is what I do” — it feels like he was typing out a message to an old friend.
c. with the “customers like you” comment he makes you feel like you were one of a select few to receive this email (more on this in example #2).
d. they were offering a $50 amazon gift card to participants — yeah that’s pretty wicker (that should have been “wicked” but now that I look at it I’m feeling like “wicker” should totally be a thing…so it stays).
Make people feel CHOSEN and SMART
Think of a few ways you can get people engaged OTHER THAN a bribe or viral GIF of a kitten — was that you?…be honest now. This is a concept Jelly nails.
This is an email inviting a user to engage with the site again, in the form of answering a question. The subject of this email read “What is a mutual fund?” (with the quotation marks — this seems to grab people’s attention).
Once again; the email starts out by making you feel chosen/important but also implies that you are seen as SMART or an EXPERT. This could have been sent to a 100 Jelly members or 1,000,000. But in the few seconds you spend viewing the email, your brain doesn’t take the time to figure that out. You just feel needed, that your opinion matters, and we all have an opinion.
Conclusion
This topic has way more to it. I will definitely be posting proceeding instalments on this but in the meantime, hopefully this is enough to get you inspired.
Stay gold!
Go to Upscri.be to create a medium embeddable form like the one above.
