Writing great emails

It's a learnable skill. But there's no perfect formula.

I can’t speak for you, but I get too much email. My kids are still young enough that they’re excited about their inboxes, and they’re surprised when they get new messages, because they just don’t get that many. (Of course, they rarely reply to the emails they DO get. And honestly, they’re young enough that they’re sometimes eager to sign up for spammy newsletters. Not like this newsletter. This newsletter is not spammy.)

Anyway, you may rely on email to win new business. The hard part with email, of course, is getting people to read it.

The reason spam never stops is because it’s cheap: You can send tons of emails for very little money, and a small handful of sales — a fraction of a percentage — can be a difference maker. But that’s not your business. (If it is your business, stop reading Your Intermittent Lex, and start questioning your life decisions.)

You already know that every email you send is selling. Even if you don’t think of yourself as “in sales.” And you know as a human who receives email that there are too many emails, that most emails aren’t worth your time, and that emails that are thoughtful and caring about your time make a difference.

I have a whole talk on crafting great, readable emails. But the keys are obvious — you just have to use them, every time: Interesting, non-obnoxious subject lines. Good grammar. Short, to the point sentences. Definitely not too long.

The first podcast ads I ever sold were on my own show, a podcast called Unprofessional. That was a stroke of luck; I could send out emails to potential advertisers like: An Unprofessional opportunity for 23andMe. A marketing person wants to open that email because it’s intriguing without being hacky, tacky, or scandalous.

Now you might not be selling something called Unprofessional. I get that. But it’s still your job to write emails that motivate and reward attention. Your email should ABSOLUTELY be shorter than, say, this very post — if it’s to a new potential customer.

The absolute most important trick, though, is: Be human. In business, people still often cling to a too-formal tone, with the thought that this makes them sound more businessy. It makes you sound less readable more unlikable, less like a person. Success in business comes not just from having a great product or service, but also from connecting with the people you’re selling to.

Write like a human. Write emails you wouldn’t mind reading. And respect your reader.