Written by Christine Maley

Early this week I wrote a post on email marketing so I thought it would be interesting  to follow up with a look at how to get people to actually read the mail you send them.

We all receive so much mail and email, that we rarely read the majority of what we receive. Many items are automatically trashed because their heading or format  fails to capture the interest of the receiver.  So how do we get people to actually read what we have to say?

Half of the battle is simply getting the consumer to open your piece of mail.   There was a post in Marigold’s Technologies Direct Marketing Blog that I think is very relevant to this:

“Far too often I have seen email creative efforts focus 99% of their time on the body of the email, that is, the copy, layout and graphic design and only 1% on the subject line. This is a huge mistake. Sometimes the subject line is a mere afterthought. In our experience conducting B2B email marketing campaigns, sometimes we receive the creative with beautiful images, HTML design, good copywriting and no subject line at all. We then ask for the subject line only to have one thrown back at us with minimal consideration. It is my opinion that 50% of the creative effort should go into development of the subject line itself and I will tell you why.

It does not matter how good the content of the email is if it does not get opened.”

To read more of this article and for some tips on good subject lines, click here

The difference between direct marketing mail and directly-to-trash-marketing- for me- is making them short, sweet, and any of these three things:

  1. Personalized
  2. Interesting
  3. Relevant

Your business is all of these things to the customer. The heading of your mail needs to demonstrate that.