If you aren’t getting the response you hoped for from emails to customers, you may need to take a step back — and then get much, much closer.
“For some reason, marketing and sales people tend to change their tone as soon as they’re writing a work email,” writes Heather Morgan, founder of Salesfolk. That translates into language that is stiff, formal and, often, off-putting.
A better approach? Pick a real-life customer (or dream customer) and write your email as if you were addressing him or her.
“After you’re done, read your email aloud to yourself and listen to how it sounds,” Morgan said. “Try to remove any jargon or language that wouldn’t normally be in an email that you would send to a friend or coworker.”
Another tip: Use personal pronouns — I, we, you, us. Those words appear naturally in messages to family and friends but tend to disappear in many email promos, Morgan said. That’s a shame, she explained, because the absence of those easy, personal touches “make your message feel impersonal, and it’s a dead giveaway to the reader that it’s probably mass.”
Have a little time and in need of a giggle this week? Check out Morgan’s Cold Email Hall of Shame.
