Are your emails getting lost in crowded inboxes, leaving you wondering if your efforts are worth it? If so, this blog post is for you. Email marketing is one of my favourite—and most effective—forms of marketing. I regularly have people tell me how helpful they find them, much they enjoy reading them and most importantly... that they can't wait to open them. Plus, they regularly sell my service too, which means more time automated and less "on" in business -which is a huge win!
That being said, there's a catch in that people are discerning about what they open. To avoid the dreaded instant delete, you need to understand what makes an email irresistible. That means understanding what makes people want to click "open", how to hold their attention when they do and what will want them wanting more. Sound like the dream? Well, you're in luck. This blog is a step-by-step guide to creating emails that do exactly that.
So let's dive into: How To Write Emails People Can't Wait to Open.
The first thing is to find your story.
As someone who has a brain primed for marketing, I quite literally see everything as content. Those seemingly irrelevant moments that occur throughout your day are often goldmines to connection. If you want to learn how, my signature Content That Connects course teaches you the process to create stories that sell. But essentially, it's about seeing where you are the living embodiment of your service, how you witness its essence weaving through everyday life and noticing little reflections of how it creates ripples. Spend a moment thinking about your day. See what part of the day snags your attention. Then let the story of this moment flow in your mind. Can you notice elements of your service woven into that moment?
Then, once you have your story, cut to the middle.
Once you have your story, it's important to consider how you can invite people to actually read it. Here's a fun activation for you. Read the openings below.
On the morning of October 30, 1969, the body of Chase Andrews lay in the swamp, which would have absorbed it silently, routinely.
-- Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
I lost my arm on my last trip home.
–– Octavia Butler, Kindred.
It was love at first sight.
–– Joseph Heller, Catch-22.
Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet.
–– Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You.
What do all of the above have in common? They all start in the middle! You are gripped from the outset and instantly want to know more. That's the sign of a good story opening... and it's also how you can invite people to be excited to open your emails.
Some examples of how I do this:
"I know exactly when I'm going to meet the love of my life"
"A guy I went on a date with rejected me and I was THRIlLED"
"£17k months didn't feel how I expected them to"
Then, take the reader on a journey
Just like the title did, a good story will have you wanting to keep wanting more. It will take you a journey where you always want to see how the next chapter will unfold. A method for this can be to write freely, then re-read it through the lens of "is this engaging?". Good storytelling can make watching paint dry interesting, so it's less about what the story is and more the way you tell it. Remember here, you are writing for you (because we want to enjoy our content), but it's also got to be designed to interest the reader. Think about what they can relate to, where they will see themselves in the story and what they will be interested in.
Let's continue the examples:
"I know exactly when I'm going to meet the love of my life"
the story: how obsessing over a pendulum telling me when I was going to meet the love of my life made me realise I crave certainty and it holds me back from creating freely
"A guy I went on a date with rejected me and I was THRIlLED"
the story: when I went through the most gut-wrenching heartbreak, my creativity writing was the best it's ever been. As it healed I lost some of that, until the rejection activated me.
"£17k months didn't feel how I expected them to"
the story: I spent so long chasing a goal that wasn't mine because I believed it would make me see a certain type of way, but the reality was it didn't and I lost myself in the process.
Make your emails valuable
A good story is valuable to you because it offers you something. It could education, escapism or emotional connection, but there's a reason you keep turning the page. Well, your emails need to be the same to make people want to open them. Not to brag, but I regularly get told that people find my emails genuinely helpful in their own marketing and that's key to them reading them! It's also essential when it comes to selling your service. If your marketing doesn't give value, how can people know that your service will? What are the key takeaways from this email? What is something that people can action right away? How can people apply these learnings/realisations/experiences to their own lives?
Finally, tie it back to your service.
A good story will weave the ending in so seamlessly you aren't ever prepared for it to end. Well, the same is true when you are using stories to sell. You don't want the "selling" element to startle the reader and make them glad it's all over. You want it to be a natural progression that leaves them wanting more. Most people find this the hardest part of Stories That Sell, so let's complete the examples.
"I know exactly when I'm going to meet the love of my life"
the tie: my service invites people to become the marketing expert of their own business, so they create their own certainty without relying on the opinions of a noisy marketing world.
"A guy I went on a date with rejected me and I was THRIlLED"
the tie: most content isn't based on emotion - my intention is to guide people in creating memorable marketing and emotive writing is one of the most effective ways of doing so.
"£17k months didn't feel how I expected them to"
the tie: it's so easy to get swept up into all of the external noise when it comes to business, every offering I create is designed to help people turn that down and to follow what is true for them.
So, there you have it! How to write emails that people can't wait to open. Want to read mine? You can sign up here.
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