The battle of the inbox continues. With the average number of emails a person receives increasing annually, reaching your prospects in their inboxes is a struggle.
The ease of creating an email is often confused with the notion that “email is easy.” As a result, marketers send countless bad emails to prospects. When you want to cut through the mess, consider these three strategies:
- Go short. Far too often businesses write long emails trying to “sell” their prospects. Chop your emails up into small paragraphs and pithy sentences that engage your prospects. Share a short story and get them to read the rest on your website, or provide just a single tip that will give your prospect an immediate action item they can use that day.
- Use small attachments. When most people think of an attachment from a stranger they think of spam, which is why hardly anyone sends attachments these days. But attachments can be a great way to get noticed in the inbox when you make it something friendly, like a PDF file. Consider sending a short 1-to-3-page article as an attachment to pique interest and give potential customers a reason to reach back to you for more help. Make your email even stronger by following up on the article you sent a few days after you shared it and watch your response rate dramatically increase
- Make the next step clear. Are you asking your prospects to call you? Are you asking them to respond to your email or to visit your website? Whatever you want your prospect to do, make sure you are clear about it. Emails often get deleted or archived because a prospect isn't sure what action they should take. Eliminate the guesswork, and make sure one call to action is present.
Each time you send an email to your list of prospects, you have a chance to add value or erode equity—which usually means your message goes to the trash. By offering short, valuable messages, sending engaging attachments and including a clear call to action in your emails, you will be sending messages that prospects respond to.
Business consultant, speaker and author Todd Bates is president and owner of Todd Bates Systems (www.ToddBatesSystems.com).