When you write an email for your subscribers are you clear about what you want to say?
Hopefully the answer to that question was ‘yes’ because that is half the battle won. If the answer was “no” or ‘sometimes” or ‘mostly” then please read this post before you write another email.
Unless you are clear about what you want to say each and every time you set out to say something then you really are wasting your time.
The second thing you need to ensure is that you are clear about how you actually present the message. By that I mean that the words you type onto your keyboard must accurately reflect the ideas you are trying to get across.
It is not good enough that you can read your email and say “It could be better but at least I know what I mean,” because this approach will have subscribers heading for the unsubscribe button in huge numbers.
So here are my five top tips to ensure that you write better emails and that every email you send actually says what you want it to say:
- Have a plan – Work out what you want to say before you start writing. Unless you are totally clear about what you want to say then you stand no hope of explaining this to others in an email.
- Build a structure – make a list of bullet points or brief notes for each of the points you want to make and spend some time putting them in a logical order. This will ensure that you don’t miss out anything important and that you don’t include information that is irrelevant and confusing.
- Get writing – Now get to work on the email. Flesh our your points and check it over for grammar and other mistakes. If things don’t make sense then take time changing things around until it does make sense.
- Read it aloud – Don’t even think about sending it yet. Read your email aloud because this will instantly highlight any problem areas. Words or phrases that you stumble over will need to be rewritten to make it easier to understand. It is often at this point that you might read a sentence and think “That’s not what I wanted to say at all,” and if this happens to you then go back and correct as necessary.
- Get someone else to read it – This is the icing on the cake and will confirm whether or not you have got the other steps right. If someone else reads your copy and says they can perfectly understand what you have written, then you have done a good job and can hit ‘send’ with confidence. If they are confused then you need to work on the part(s) that are causing confusion.
In summary, before hitting the ‘send’ button when you write an email to your list you need to be clear about what you want to say and be clear about how you say it.