Greeting Your Reader

Greeting Your Reader

By now you should understand that personalization is key. An email that does not address the recipient by name will most likely not be read, and at the very least, will most likely not get your desired action.

Most autoresponders make personalization very easy. You can insert code – usually with the push of a button – into the email message that you are sending. That code will automatically insert the first name of each recipient, if it was supplied when the person filled out the opt-in form.

Putting the first name in the subject line is not enough. It must also be in the greeting of the actual email. It should also, ideally, be used a few more times throughout the body of the email, again using the special code inserted when the email is being written.

How to Write Successful Emails

Of course, if you were writing a personal letter, you would use the word ‘Dear’ in your letter. For example, a letter to your mother may start out with ‘Dear Mom.’ It is important to note that some marketers do use the term ‘Dear’ when addressing their readers, but some readers don’t necessarily like that. The word ‘Dear’ is often thought to be an endearment, indicating that there is a personal relationship with this person.

On the other hand, you want your readers to feel that they have a personal relationship with you. At the same time, you don’t want them to feel offended at your use of the endearment. One way around this is to make sure that the rest of your letter has a personal feel to it as well.

Of course, you don’t have to use the term ‘Dear’ at all. Instead, you could say ‘Hey Jane’ or ‘Hi Jane.’ The important thing is that the reader is indeed greeted – by name.

Most people think that this is where the greeting ends, but it really isn’t. You must view a sales letter much as you would a personal letter. You want this person to feel that they can relate to you. You want them to feel like you respect them, as an individual person – not as a customer or a potential customer. For this reason, the greeting actually carries over into the first paragraph, just as the greeting in a personal letter would.

Your letter may start with:

Hi Jane,

I was working in my office this morning, and I thought about what you and my other readers may be doing with their time this morning. Are you working in your office as well? It is a shame to be trapped indoors on such a beautiful day, isn’t it?

As you can see, the reader is greeted, and then the writer is identifying with the reader. He is basically saying ‘I am just like you. We have common goals.’ There is no sales pitch here at all. There isn’t even an indication that one is coming.

How to Write Successful Emails

It is personal. It is much like walking up to someone in person and saying ‘Hi Jane. It’s a beautiful day outside today isn’t it? I was just thinking about you the other day, how are you doing?’

When you write your greeting and the opening paragraph, you should definitely imagine seeing one person – in person – and starting up a conversation with them. You obviously would not start out by trying to sell them something. You would start by establishing the conversation, and making that person feel that they are on equal footing with you – ‘we are just alike.’

You would never want to write in such a way as to address multiple people at once. This is a mistake, and it will get your letter deleted. For example, note that this writer said ‘I thought about you and my other readers…’ It did not say ‘I thought about my readers and wondered what you would be doing…’ It did not just say ‘I thought about my readers and wondered what they were doing…’

At the same time, it was not misleading. It addressed this particular person, and stated that the writer thought about them and their other readers. Many marketers make this mistake of ‘grouping’ people into the letter. They may say something like ‘many of you have written me.’ They may say something like ‘a lot of you have already taken advantage of this.’

Don’t do that! You want each of your readers to feel special – exclusive. You can’t accomplish that if you lump them altogether and making it obvious that this is a mass email. Keep it personal, and keep it one-on-one.

Again, start your letter like you are writing to your Mom or an old friend. This is the surest way to start your letter on a personal note. Don’t lose control of that later, when you start working on the body of your email.

The Body of the Email Sales Letter

After the greeting and the first paragraph, you have set the stage for the rest of your sales email. Of course, it isn’t good to jump from one topic clean into a different topic. That can not only confuse the reader, but turn them completely off – because then they feel that you have tried to ‘butter them up.’

In our example above, the writer of the message wrote that it was a shame to be trapped indoors on such a beautiful day. This can effectively lead into the

How to Write Successful Emails

body of the email, where the writer will discuss the ability – or the means – to not be trapped indoors on a beautiful day.

The writer can basically say ‘I know how to escape outdoors’ and then proceed to lead the reader to the information that will help them to not be trapped indoors on a beautiful day.

Here is an example of how it might go:

Hi Jane,

I was working in my office this morning, and I thought about what you and my other readers may be doing with their time this morning. Are you working in your office as well? It is a shame to be trapped indoors on such a beautiful day, isn’t it?

As the morning progressed, I couldn’t stop thinking about spending time outdoors – but with all of the work to be done, I didn’t see how it was possible. I’m sure you have found yourself in the same situation.

I’m a big believer in fate. The phone rang just as I had resigned myself to missing out on the great outdoors today, and it was my good friend Buddy. Buddy was on the golf course and knew I was stuck in my office.

At first, I thought he just called to gloat, but as the call progressed, he told me that he wanted to share a secret with me. He asked me if I knew why he was at the golf course, while I was stuck inside. I told him that he was just luckier than me, and he responded that this just wasn’t true. He said it was because he had information that I didn’t have.

Buddy asked me if I had a pen and paper. I reminded him that I was in my office, and that of course I had a pen and paper. He told me to write down a website address, and to visit it. He said that after I read the information there, I would know what the secret was, and that next week, when the sun was shinning, I could join him in a game of golf.

Now, not only has the writer of this email kept things on a personal ‘I’m just like you’ level, he has also started telling the reader a story. At this point, the reader wants to know what that secret is.

Now, obviously, the action that this writer will want the reader to take is to visit a website. The key to getting them to do that is to rev them up, and keep the secret. The only revelation will be how the writer knows what his good friend Buddy was talking about now, and how he knows that he will definitely be enjoying the great outdoors next week. He will also, of course, share that link with Jane – and his other readers.

How to Write Successful Emails

There are simple rules for copywriting, and you simply have to insure that you include all of the elements for a successful sales letter in your email. Here are the elements:

1. Personalization - Hi Jane is the beginning here, and the first paragraph proceeds in that personalization. The writer wants the reader to know that they are ‘in the same boat.’

2. Set the scene and address a problem – We’ve set the scene with a beautiful day, in which the author is stuck in the office. His problem is that he wants more time to be able to do the things he wants to do. He wants to get outside, and he is assuming that his reader, Jane, wants the same thing.

3. Provide a solution – The writer’s good friend Buddy has provided a solution to the problem, with a website address.

4. Draw the reader in – Tell a story. You always want the reader to want to know what happens next.

5. Compel the reader to take action – As the email goes on, the writer might tell the reader that he noticed that there is a limited time that this webpage will be up, or that only a certain number of people are going to get this information before it is gone forever.

You could also take a different approach, and really hit on the readers emotions, as they relate to the problem.

So, how many paragraphs do the body of the email need? You can have as many or as few as you want. Ideally, it should be no more than seven or eight short paragraphs. If it is too long, your reader may not even read it, thinking it will take too much of their time. If it is too short, however, you may not have enough time to compel the reader to take the action you want them to take.