Yellow Jersey Web Design

• Know Your Target Audience
  Tailor your message according to your audience and your objective. Know what motivates your recipients and use it to determine how, and in what order, to describe the benefits of your offer.
• Be Clear and Concise
  Stick to simple words, short phrases and paragraphs consisting of 1-3 short sentences. Your recipients should not have to think too much, parse long sentences or read big sections of text. Check for words that can be eliminated. You will be surprised at how many you find and how much cleaner your writing is when you are finished.
• Get to the Point
  The first two sentences of your email should answer important questions for the recipient like, “Who are you? What do you want me to do? And what’s in it for me?” So state your offer up front, include benefits and make it easy for your audience to take the next step.
• Include “Call to Action” Links
  Know what action you want your recipients to take. Do you want them to read an article? Learn more about a product or service? Buy something? Then, place a link in the beginning, middle and end of the email, making it easy for the recipient to click whenever they are ready. People read, react, make decisions and take action differently. By sprinkling links throughout your email, you can be ready whenever they are.
• Create a Sense of Urgency
  Limit the offer to a specific time period or, for example, the first 50 customers. People don’t like to be at a disadvantage or left out. Try throwing in a bonus, for example, “Act now and also receive?” to sweeten the deal.
• Proofread
  Read your email copy aloud. If you stumble over words or phrases, rewriting is a very good idea. Check your spelling and grammar thoroughly. Errors not only make your email harder to read, they can make your company look unprofessional. Ask others who are not involved with your business to read your email. They will be able to tell you if it makes sense.
• Punctuate Judiciously
  Save exclamation points for when you really need them, use ALL CAPS carefully for emphasis and steer clear of emoticons . The benefits of the offer itself will motivate the recipient more effectively without reasonless clutter.
• Improve your subject lines.
  To put it most simply, a good subject line will get an email opened. Lead with a benefit that lets the receiver know what’s in it for him or her. Make it interesting, and try to pique the reader’s curiosity. You want the reader to feel compelled to find out more.
• Check your “from” name.
  Most emails that are quickly ignored or deleted are those with an unrecognizable “from” name or address. Is your “from” name easily recognizable? Do your list members know who they are receiving an email from? Put a name that your receivers are most familiar with in your “from” line.
• Evaluate how often (and what) you send.
  Sometimes the reason why people don’t open emails is because they simply get too many of them. Or, on the flip side, maybe you’re not sending often enough and recipients are losing interest in between the times when they do hear from you.

Beyond these general guidelines, it is experience that will help you improve your response. Define your objective, your audience and your offer, and then be creative!

These tips brought to you by our partners at Constant Contact