1. A compelling subject line. This is probably the most important part of writing a marketing email. People will never see your message if they don't open your email and they won't open your email if the subject line looks like spam. You must come up with a subject line that intrigues and motivates a person to open it. Simply saying something like "We're Having A Sale" is going to get lost in the sea of marketing emails they're already receiving. You need to get creative and come up with something that arouses a person's curiosity. Some subject lines that work well are statements that leverage the word "this". For example a good subject line might read "Is this something you still need?" or "Have you ever seen something like this?". Those types of subject lines arouse curiosity and can encourage people to take the next step of opening the email. Once the email is opened you'll have to keep in mind the next thing.
2. Keep your email short and sweet. People are in a hurry and their email boxes are loaded with messages. If you want to get your message read you need to keep it short and to the point. Studies show when someone is confronted with a lot of reading they'll often times choose to read nothing. The same study shows when people are presented with a reasonably small amount to read they're are far more likely to read it. So in that sense when it comes to email content, less is more. Another thing you can do to make marketing emails less intimidating is include plenty of white space and line breaks. You want to make your content easy to skim and that's why it's critical to consider the next thing you must do.
3. Highlight the important parts. Since people are in such a hurry it's important you captivate their attention by highlighting the important parts of your email. By doing this you make the email easy to skim while getting your point across. I recommend using bold on an occasional phrase and combining that will bullet points. If you use bullet points try to limit them to a maximum of four in a row. Anymore than that starts to feel like a long list. Include at least a line break between any paragraphs and be sure to include plenty of white space around the next must do I'm about to share with you.
4. A clear call to action. If you've done everything right in your marketing email to this point you've been able to get some people to read and get the gist of your email. If they like what they read they're going to want to know what to do next. Don't make this a mystery. After you've conveyed your point provide them with a clear call to action. A call to action is a link or button the person can click in the email to take them to the next step. If you're selling product it could take them to a page providing product details, or it could take them to a checkout page where they can complete a purchase. Whatever the action you want them to take after reading your email is the call to action. It could be something as creating a link that says "Click here to find out more". However if you ignore the last must do in this article you may not get the best results.
5. Provide a sense of urgency. Humans are procrastinators by nature and when it comes to taking action from an email - doubly so. That's why it's important to give your readers a reason they need to respond to your marketing email right at that moment. Some things you can do are provide a time limit on your offer or provide them with a bonus if they respond within a certain time frame. In my experience people are most likely to respond if they fear they're going to miss out on a deal. Whatever the case make sure you give them a good reason, not to put off responding, but drop everything and do it now.
By following these five musts when writing your marketing emails you're sure to increase your open and delivery rates and ultimately your bottom line.