After your planning is done, let’s go into best practices for writing your actual email autoresponder messages. That includes the subject line, the body of the email, and your call to action.
Start with the End in Mind
Before you sit down to write each email, look at your plan. What is your goal with this particular email? Is it to gain their trust with a personal story? Is it to share social proof? Is it to overcome an objection? Or is it to close the sale?
Knowing what your goal is helps you frame your message well and use the language best suited for the task.
Set Expectations
If your autoresponder series is going to out to brand new subscriber, you need to set some expectations from the very start in your first welcome email after they have subscribed. How often will you email them? When will they get the emails? This helps open rates since readers know what to expect and when to look for your messages.
Example:
You can expect to hear from me every few days. Keep an eye out for the next email the day after tomorrow. I look forward to share with you how we were finally able to stop those embarrassing toddler tantrums.
Use Formatting to Make Your Emails Easy to Read
Use formatting like bullets, headlines, bold phrases, and even images to make it easy to scan through the email.
Example:
Some of the reasons you feel stressed may be because you’re feeling:
- Anger
- Frustration
- Anxiety
- Overstimulation
- Exhaustion
- Sickness
Use some Images
Speaking of images, they are a great way to grab your reader’s attention as soon as you get them to open the email. The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” really holds true. However, don’t use too many images in your email, which may slow down the loading time. When you use images in your emails, be sure to use “alt” text when you’re setting them up in your autoresponder so people will see the text if they don’t display images in email.
Pay Attention to the Subject Line
Craft your subject lines carefully. Your first goal for all your emails is to get subscribers to open the email. If that doesn’t happen, nothing else you do matters. Spend some time coming up with a good subject line and test to see what works best with your audience. Some audiences may be more receptive to shorter subject lines while others respond to longer ones with more specifics. Find out how to split test headlines in your autoresponder service and try out different types.
Examples:
- Subject: Ready to put a stop to toddler tantrums?
- Subject: Toddler Tantrums…no more!
- Subject: I was mortified!
Finally, let your Personality Show
Be personable throughout your communications. Your goal is to give your readers a chance to get to know you so they can feel a personal connect and start to like and finally trust you.
There you have it. Some of the practical tips for writing your email series. Have fun with it and if you have any comments to add, please add them below!