Write winning business emails
break-thru the clutter with simple eDM writing techniques
Gone are the days when people used emails for personal communications. Now it’s all different messenger apps and social media to communicate with each other. Does that mean, emails are dead. Well no! Email still continues to be the preferred mode of communication within a business organization between employees, between two business organisations for transacting business, communicating with businesses formally to get your work done etc. Emails still remain the most important tool for demand generation, and funnel creation and customer relationship management (CRM). Emails are mainly used by businesses for ISD.
In this blog, I am going to mainly talk about the “Demand Gen” emails targeted at R.E.A.D ers. Who are these R.E.A.D ers. Give me a minute and I will explain.
Aren’t we all getting a deluge of these business emails, popularly called eDMs, where in, people are trying to sell everything from new financial products, swanky real estate properties, that new automation software, research reports, certifications and more.
As they say, you will never get a second chance to make a first impression. The question is, how to make these business emails catchy enough for your target audience to spend few seconds or even few minutes on it and hopefully take some action, other than deleting and unsubscribing. (pun intended)
First, lets look at who are these R.E.A.D ers, whose attention we need to capture:
If you want your message to be shared, the language should be such that it motivates the recipient to pass on the message. Similarly if you are targeting the actual user, it should talk about the solution to the problem that the user is facing on a daily basis and how you can help him/her. It is these target recipients that you should be fine tuning your communications to.
Ask yourself. If you were one of the R.E.A.D ers, why would you read a marketing or a sales email that’s asking for your business, unless you find something in that communication that makes you click open and read.
Are you giving them one or more of these half a DOESn reasons to read your marketing email.
Let me give you couple of examples to illustrate my point better:
Here is an emailer communicating same message but with two different subject lines.
Which do you think has a better chance of being clicked open. Which would make the recipient think for a moment?
Let me give you one more example:
Which do you think has a better chance of being clicked open. In both the cases, the subject line in the 2nd option talks of benefits upfront, which enhances the chances of getting the attention of the R.E.A.D ers.
Lets dig a little deeper now. Here are again two version for a similar communication:
Which do you think is a better communication. In the option 2 - Subject straightaway communicates benefits and the mail starts with a customer success story, which would enhance customer curiosity. Everyone wants to know about successful people, what they did and how they did.
I can go on and on with more examples. To cut the long story short, here is the formula that you must adopt for sending emails that have higher chance of being acted up on. It is called BESST KISS.
Following these six points will help you create emails that is sure to catch the attention of the prospect and help in increasing your pipeline. Just to summarise, remember these three things:
The R.E.A.D ers for whom you are creating your messaging (including the subject line)
Give Half DOESn reasons for the R.E.A.D ers to read your mails.
BESST KISS
That’s it from my side. Happy communicating. Happy Selling.
BESST KISS is extremely effective with Managed Accounts too, particularly when you are developing a solution & presenting the same for an identified pain area. Superb article Raghu!