www.getwsodo.

com
www.getwsodo.com
LAURA BELGRA Y

21 Ways To Write
Emails That Get
Opened, Read, And
Clicked Like Crazy
…so people love you and buy
from you like you’re a gelato
stand in the flames of Hell.
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…so people love you and buy from you like you’re a gelato stand in the flames of Hell.

Note: most of these suggestions are designed for personality-based businesses. This is email
marketing for freelancers, consultants, bloggers, life coaches, business coaches, wellness
experts, service providers, and other solopreneur types.

Some of this works for bigger businesses and even e-commerce businesses, as well, but
those are often more visually based.

In the end, you have to think what kind of email you’d want to get from someone like you.
And go with that. Now then, those tips:

1 - MAKE YOUR EMAIL FEEL LIKE AN EFAB (EMAIL FROM A BESTIE)

Think about the way you shuffle through your snail mail. Junk…junk…junk…ooh,
something from a friend!…junk…junk…

You chuck the catalogs and coupons and credit card offers, and get excited about that one
piece (so rare) that’s hand-written, with a return address you know and an honest-to-good-
ness stamp.

That’s the same thing we do with our inbox. Junk, junk, junk — ooh, something from a friend!

If your emails feel like they’re coming from a bestie (rather than a business), more people will
be excited to open them.

Most of these next steps will help with achieving that feeling of EFAB — Email From A Bestie.

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2 – WRITE TO ONE PERSON.

Your subscribers are reading your emails by themselves, not in a group. And it takes them out
of it if you say,

Hey everyone, hope you’re all having a great Friday. I’ve been thinking of you people all
day, dying to let you know about this.

Instead, you want to talk to your subscriber like she’s the only one on your list:

Hey Matilda, hope you’re having a great Friday! I’ve been thinking of you all day, dying
to let you know about this:

To help with this, when you sit down to write, don’t picture a mass of people, and don’t
picture a business.

Even if you’re business-to-business, your email won’t be read by a business. It’ll be read by a
person. Remember that.

Do picture one person. Picture them opening your email and reading it. I say, pick a best
friend you’d write to anyway, but pretend that person has the needs of your customer.

And then go all EFAB on ‘em.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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3 – KNOW YOUR “COAT OF ARMS.”

You’ve seen a coat of arms or family crest before. It’s an old-timey thing: a design, originally
on a shield, that used a few significant symbols of a family’s history.

A lot of schools have them. My high school had one. It was all-girls. Our mascot was the
Beaver. Behold, our crest, with a sweet stack of beavers.

There’s also a book and — I think — an oil lamp? Symbols of hard work and intelligence. Go,
Beavers!

The point is, what are your recurring themes?

What are you obsessed with, what would you pay money to do or eat all day? Pets, spouse,
kids, the things you’d post about the most on social media – those are your personal
trademarks. The ideas and things you’d go to battle for. Your coat of arms.

On my coat of arms, you’d see my husband, Steven, New York City, Bravo reality shows,
watermelon chunks, spaghetti, and a hand cupped to an ear (because I love eavesdropping).

I return to these topics again and again in my emails.

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Your recurring themes will be the things and ideas your email subscribers come to identify
with you, which is what makes them feel close to you. (And want to work with you and buy
from you.)

Know those themes — go ahead, jot down 4 of them now — and keep coming back to them in
your emails.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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4 – GET TEASE-Y WITH YOUR SUBJECT LINES.

(THE CURIOSITY GAP.)

Some people call it a curiosity gap. Some, an open loop.

The idea is, evoke curiosity. Use a subject line that leaves us guessing in some way. There’s
information missing, and it’s irresistible to our puzzle-solving human brains.

That’s why you don’t want to give away the whole story in the subject line.

For example, here’s a line with zero curiosity gap or tease factor:

SUBJ: Bananas have the most potassium.

With a line like that, we’ll agree, yes, bananas do have the most potassium. But we won’t
open that email. Here’s one that’s trying to evoke curiosity, but not quite nailing it:

SUBJ: Why bananas have the most potassium.

We don’t care why, because they just do. Still no curiosity.

Instead, how about:

SUBJ: What’s cheap, delicious, and stops leg cramps?

With a line like that, there’s a curiosity gap. Even if we think we know the answer, and we’re
saying, “Oooh, I know, I know! It’s bananas,” we’ll still open to see if we’re right.

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Most of my most-opened subject lines use a curiosity gap. I am always an email tease.

Some examples:

• Is there something I can take for this?

• The thing that might’ve almost happened to me
• There goes [FIRST NAME]’s weekend

5 – DON’T USE TITLE CASE IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

That’s a tipoff that it’s a newsletter, not a personal email. Example:

SUBJ: This Problem You Have Is Keeping Me Up At Night

Even if the line is intriguing, the capital letters at the start of each word (a format called “title
case”) screams, “I’m a newsletter!” We still might open it, but we’re not as disarmed as we
would be if it were typed like this:

SUBJ: This problem you have is keeping me up at night

That feels like it’s from someone we know. Remember, even if we KNOW it’s an email blast,
we like the illusion that it’s just to us. See this wink-y response from a subscriber:

LAURA BELGRA Y

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Translation: “I know this email about your trip is to your whole list, but it let me suspend
disbelief and pretend it was just to ME. I read the whole thing, and then followed your call to
action.”

Bingo. That’s just the kind of response we want.

Now, you’ll see marketers you know who go against this tip and many others. (You can,
too. They’re suggestions, not federal laws.) But keep in mind that those people might have
leeway because they’ve long established themselves in your inbox.

For instance, my friend Ash Ambirge is well-known for her great marketing emails.

She always uses title case. Because she can. We’ll still open it because it’s from her.

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6 – PLAY AROUND WITH PUNCTUATION IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE.

What would you write to a friend? You might not put a period on the end. You might not even
capitalize the first word.

SUBJ: This is so you.

Vs

SUBJ: this is so you

There’s nothing wrong with a complete sentence, but an unpunctuated subject line gives the
sense of informality. It feels casually dashed off, which makes it personal.

Plus, more and more, even old fuddy-duddy Gen-X-ers are leaving out the punctuation in
texting, which is the most intimate platform of ‘em all.

So, to give your emails the feel of a text, here’s a tip:

LAURA BELGRA Y

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7 – A XE THE BRACKETS AROUND YOUR COMPANY NAME.

A lot of newsletters use these.

Here’s an example:

SUBJ: How to get more clients [Superduper Marketing Inc]

Don’t know about you, but I find myself skipping over those in my inbox because my mind
automatically categorizes them as “not a personal note just to me.”

It is OK to use the brackets on occasion for extra info you want them to pay special attention
to:

SUBJ: The big bonus I promised you [Open now – time-sensitive!]

But do that only when it’s crucial to the specific message.

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8 – USE AN INFORMAL SALUTATION – OR NONE.

A formal greeting signals, “we’re not friends.”

Examples:

Greetings, valued customer.

This reads as business-y at best. Really, it feels like an invading alien. “Greetings, earthlings.”

Hello, Matilda,
This feels cold and formal (read it out loud, you’ll feel snobby and aloof).

Dear Matilda,
This isn’t terrible, but it feels a little old-fashioned and formal for a regular email.
After all, you wouldn’t write that to a friend you speak with all the time. In a birthday card,
maybe. But not in an email.

I recommend something informal like,

• Hey Matilda,
• Hi Matilda,
• Matilda!

A nameless greeting can work, too. It’s what we’d write to a friend:

• Hey –
• Hey there –
• Yo –
• Oh, hey –
• What’s up!
LAURA BELGRA Y

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Or you can skip the greeting altogether. Just launch in like a blog post.

That’s fine, though you’re missing a chance to connect with your reader in a more intimate
way.

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9 – MAKE THE PREVIEW TEXT EXCITING, NOT REDUNDANT OR BUSINESSY

The first words of your email will show up as a preview in the inbox. So don’t make them the
same as your subject line like this:

And don’t make them “[BUSINESS NAME] Newsletter [BUSINESS NAME] Newsletter.”

Here’s one that landed in my inbox. I did not open it.

Do make it an intriguing line, something that makes the reader want to know more:

LAURA BELGRA Y

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I asked ConvertKit how to do this and, within minutes, they shot back these instructions:

“Go into HTML mode by clicking < > in the editor bar and at the very top of your email, add
these lines of code:

<div style=”display:none;font-size:0;line-height:0;max-height:0;mso-hide:all”>
Pre-header Text Goes Here
</div>

Of course, change the text in the middle there.”

Here’s what you can do with this:

Suppose you have an email with a very newsletter-y line at the top*…

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Instead of that line being the preview copy, which looks like this…

preview show only the meaty part, like this…

Remember, we already know the email isn’t just to us. But we still like to feel like it’s a
personal email when we open it. Any boring “housekeeping” items in the preview signal to
your reader that this is junk, they can skip it.

And if you’ve made this “boring preview text” mistake before, don’t feel bad. It’s not a
cardinal sin that’ll have people racing for the unsubscribe link. But why not give your email
every advantage you can?

Note that practically everyone has lame preview text sometimes (or always). I’ve blurred out
the ones who wouldn’t appreciate being a “don’t,” but some are online biggies. And one is
me! I didn’t know I could fix it.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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Fix this, and you’ll have the edge over even the top marketers in your space.

*”Genius School” is not an actual thing, at least not that I know of. I made it up for the sample
email. But if you’d like me to create a Genius School and want to pay a ton to attend, hit me
up.

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10 – USE PLAIN TEXT, NOT A DESIGNED “NEWSLETTER” TEMPLATE

A designed, polished newsletter template with more images than copy is great for fashion
and other retail businesses that rely on visual appeal.

But otherwise, you might be relieved to know that a plain text format will probably perform
better for you. It has higher deliverability rates and feels more like an EFAB (again, that’s
Email From A Bestie)

You can always stick in images. In fact, you should! And that leads me to:

11 – STICK IN OCCASIONAL IMAGES AND MAKE THEM CLICK ABLE.

Get this: our brains process images 60 thousand times faster than text.

So to stop those skimming eyes and make things fun, I sometimes give readers a choice of
things to click on.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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12 – SEND YOURSELF A TEST EMAIL, AND VIEW IT ON YOUR PHONE.

Want to see how your email looks to the majority of subscribers? (Yeah, you do.)

Then check it the way they will: on mobile. That’s where most of us check email throughout
the day.

You’ll discover all kinds of things that look different from the way they do on desktop.

The preview text is laid out differently.

Less of the subject line shows up — often, cutting off your most important words.
Passages that looked like short, readable 2-liners on your desktop look like War and Peace on
the relatively tiny phone window.
…And so on.

You’ll be glad you checked.

13 – PUT PLENTY OF “YOU” INTO THE EMAIL.

This time, I’m not talking about your personality. Though we want plenty of that, too. I’m
talking about the word “YOU.” Also, the person’s name. Those words act like smelling salts to
your reader.

In fact, emails with personalized subject lines get an average 26% higher open rate.

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Here are a couple of places I used personalization (yes, my test emails go to “Matilda.”)

FIRST NAME IN BODY OF EMAIL

Get creative. Ever notice how you’re drawn to people in real life who use your name a lot?
(And maybe touch your arm?)

Doing that in an email has the same effect. It’s flirty, personable, intimate. Even when they
know on a rational level that you sent it to thousands of people, it makes your reader feel
special.
LAURA BELGRA Y

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14 – HAVE A NEWBIE SEQUENCE.

Imagine you see a facebook ad for an irresistible freebie. It’s from a marketer you don’t know,
but you want that free tip sheet. So you pop in your email and download the thing. You don’t
even notice who it’s from. You’re too excited to find out the 5 Secrets To Achieving World
Domination In Under A Month.

A week later, you get a promotional email from some random marketer. It’s the one whose
thingy you downloaded, but you’ve already forgotten them. You think, “I didn’t sign up for
this person’s emails.” And you immediately hit unsubscribe.

(It’s like if someone asks for your number, then sends you a bootie text a month later. WHO
DIS?)

But you don’t want that to happen to your emails! You worked hard on that lead magnet to
get the person’s email. You want to keep the subscriber. Right?

The best way to do that is to have a newbie sequence. It’s also called an opt-in sequence, a
nurture sequence, a welcome sequence, an onboarding sequence, a courtship drip. (No one
calls it a courtship drip.)

And it’s a stellar way to build know, like and trust with your new subscriber.

What it is:

A newbie sequence is a specific autoresponder series that starts as soon as someone

signs up for your list.

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It reminds them that you’re the one who sent them the freebie, helps them get to know you,
and delivers them extra value, so they don’t forget you. And, hopefully, it gets them to take
the next step and buy from you!

If you’re not using a newbie sequence when people sign up, you’re leaving money on the
table and subscribers on the floor.

You’ll also get extra high open rates for your newbie sequence, which improves your overall
deliverability.

Here’s a peek at a newbie sequence

I send out.

Check out those tasty open and

click-through rates.

Get this: Welcome, or newbie, emails

generate 8 times more revenue than
the average promotional email. 11

NOTE: I’ve noticed that the newbie

sequence is crazy-underused. Which
means it’s a handy edge for you!

Even many copywriting experts whose

emails I sign up for don’t show up in my
inbox for weeks after that first “confirm
your subscription” email. WHO DIS?

LAURA BELGRA Y

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15 – SCRUB YOUR DAMN LIST.

I know. Ouch.

But this is something I wish I’d done ages ago. For years, I was paying for subscribers who
didn’t open my emails. I mean, come on, I sign up for membership sites I don’t enter,
magazines I don’t look at, a neglected Audible subscription and who (or Hulu) knows how
many other wasteful recurring charges.

It’s nice to cut at least a few bucks from the monthly statement, which is what happened
when I pruned my list down to the next less expensive level in Convertkit. Hey, I’ll fill it back
up.

But this goes beyond saving a few shekels.

I didn’t realize that because those people were lowering my open rate, they affected my
deliverability rate. Which lowered my open rate more.

That’s happening to you if you’ve got a bunch of people on your list who don’t open. So send
out that email to the cold subscribers and see if they want to stick around. Some will, and
they’ll even start opening the emails again.

So you do some damage to one number: the size of your list. In return, you get to see your
open rates spike right away.

My top regular broadcast numbers have jumped from 40% max to 55%.

(One got 64%, including resend to unopens, – more on that next.)

ps – You know what? The smaller list just feels like I got a good haircut. A sassy bob.

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16 – RESEND TO UNOPENS.

Want to increase your open rate with a few clicks? Here’s how:

By resending an email to all the people who haven’t opened it.

It may seem naggy. But let’s face it: almost no one opens all your emails. Even my own mom
has told me, “I saw an email from you. I haven’t gotten to read it yet.”

And, almost nobody will notice it’s the same email.

Here’s the trick:

1. Wait 5-7 days. If you do this right away, you’ll hit people who just haven’t gotten to their
emails yet. And then they’ll be annoyed to see two of the same email from you if they open
both.

2. Give the duplicate email a new subject line. Then, people really won’t notice. And if they do
open both, that means you’ve got a pretty dedicated reader, and chances are, they won’t be
annoyed. Or, you can use the old subject line with a Re: and a “sending this again” message,
like so:

CAVEAT: Don’t do this all the time, or people will get annoyed.
Save it for special emails you really need people to open.
LAURA BELGRA Y

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17 – PLAY WITH EMOJIS IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE.

Maybe don’t do it all the time. But once in a while, try sprinkling emojis into your subject line.

This one stood out in my inbox on Halloween:

And these did really well for me:

Can’t beat a row of ducks for standing out in a sea of plain text.

At some point, this’ll become the norm. But for now, an emoji can make your email pop in
someone’s inbox.

And if you really want to stand out…

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18 – *SHARPEN YOUR WRITING.*

Start with a bang.

Tell stories. Good ones.

Cut out unnecessary words.

Be conversational, not stiff and formal.

Use original detail instead of vague, bland-as-porridge cliches.

Use powerful active verbs, not passive ones.

Great writing is the true secret to great emails. (And judging from most of the emails out
there, that really is a secret.)

*This one’s a non-negotiable. No matter what business you’re in.

If you want some quick help to sharpen your writing, grab my 5 Secrets to Non-Sucky Copy.
It’s free.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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19 – ALWAYS HAVE A CALL TO ACTION.

Even when you’re not writing to sell or promoting anything, give your readers something to
do.

• Check out this podcast I’m loving

• Are we connected on Instagram? Come find me there.
• Hit reply and tell me ____.
• What’s your biggest struggle when it comes to ____?

(I recently asked readers the worst gift they ever got, and the replies were spectacular. One
got a used bar of soap. Even a passive-aggressive hint gift should be new in the box.)

People love to be helpful, and they love to engage. The more they interact with you and your
emails, the stronger a connection they’ll feel.

20 – MEASURE AND CELEBRATE YOUR RESULTS!

One great thing about email is, you can see what works. The results are immediate and
tangible:

Higher open rates, clicks on your links, replies, sales, compliments, requests to work with
you.

Jane, who’d attended back-to-back presentations I gave on copywriting and email, wrote to
tell me she’d put some of the tips to work and seen an immediate jump in open rates, from
an average of 20% to around 30% and up to 40%.

Always greedy for results, I asked her to tell me more.

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PS — 21 – USE THE PS.

Many people scroll right to the ps. It’s a good place to give a link again or anything you want
to tell them. Yes, you’re rewarding for skimming. Hey, however they get to the bottom of your
email, they should get a reward.

I almost never sign off without a ps.

pps – did you skip right to this line, Naughty? Go back up and read a couple of tips for your
email. You’re missing all the good stuff.

LAURA BELGRA Y

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