5 Simple Ways to Write Better Emails

4. Personalize the email.

We touched on this in two earlier points, but I wanted to give personalizing emails their own moment.

Personalization works. Period. You saw how a personalized subject line can lift open and click-through rates. Then you saw how a personalized greeting, combined with a personalized close, can make a good email stronger and more convincing.

And that’s all true and good.

But it’s also important to acknowledge a different kind of “personalization” ‒ sending the right message to the right customer (or influencer, or prospect, or co-worker) at the right time.

This is the kind of personalization that’s more effective than just dropping somebody’s first name in.

It’s also far harder … but it gets much better results.

So when you’re sending out emails to people (for requests, or sales contacts, or whatever), don’t just use the same copy over and over again. Customize it based on the receiver. Take a look at their website to get the gist of what they do and who they are. Then write an email that acknowledges that.

I get far too many emails (I bet you do, too) from people who say things that make it vividly clear they have no idea who I am or what I do. And you know what? I don’t answer those emails.

I bet most of the other people they’re sending these emails to don’t answer them, either. I bet they get pretty awful response rates.

I also bet that if they sent out even a third as many emails ‒ but actually checked who they were mailing to and wrote emails that made sense and showed five minutes of research – that they’d get more results. Fewer emails, same amount of time … but emails that actually connect with their targets and show that the sender wasn’t just cranking out a template with people’s first names stuffed in. That’s not too much to ask.