What a welcome and effective email needs to have
For a sales email to be genuinely welcome, appealing content is not enough on its own. A few basic structural elements are what make readers look forward to it. These ten points are the important ones for a sales email:
- It must have a web view button. If the reader’s email client cannot render your message fully, offering a web view is essential.
- Personalise it, including the reader’s name and the sender’s name. Personalisation creates familiarity.
- It needs a subject line and pre-header that draw the reader into opening.
Those three appear before the email is opened at all, and they shape the reader’s decision to open and to keep reading. ***
4. Keep a seventy-thirty ratio of image to text. A picture beats a thousand words; the text reinforces the memory.
5. Include a value-added link button. Once a reader has been drawn into opening and is engaged by the email, they will want to know more — a “read more” button leading into the site is essential.
Those two concern content design. A fixed layout template helps you design the content, and helps readers build the reading habit you designed for. ***
6. The email must state why the reader is receiving it. One sentence explaining the relationship between sender and recipient builds trust — and at the same time, ask the reader to add your address to their contacts (vCard).
7. The law of course requires that email give the reader an opt-out, so provide a clear unsubscribe method or button.
8. Next to the unsubscribe button, a “forward to friends” option is also essential.
9. Adding social media links raises reader engagement.
10. Finally, and unavoidably, the email must carry a call to action. Giving readers a way to respond is something they actually want.
Those five give readers a chance to participate, create an interactive relationship with the sender, and generate the information you need to gather and analyse reader response. ****
Apply these ten points and your email becomes better matched to reader expectations, more courteous, and more respectful of the reader’s time. Using our platform to design and set a template lets you produce email that readers genuinely welcome.