Emails are some of the most personal forms of writing you can do. This is because every time you write and send an email—even if it’s to a large list of subscribers—it’s arriving in someone’s private inbox. You, therefore, need to remember you’re speaking to an individual.

How to write a professional email

  1. Use people’s names
  2. Respect the reader’s time, so keep your emails short: between 50 and 125 words get the best response rates, on average (based on research by Boomerang, which analyzed the aggregate data of 5.3 million emails)
  3. And don’t overload emails with images because these can be heavy for your reader’s email client. Emails over 102kb get clipped by Gmail, for example, and this can result in your content being ignored
  4. On top of this, you should remember that each email needs an objective. What do you want the reader to do? Keep your calls to action clear, and simple, and don’t overload the content with buttons or links to click on
  5. Finally, one of the most important aspects of an email is the subject line. Without a strong subject line, it’s unlikely your reader will even open the email. For this reason, you should A/B test (or split test) your subject lines and see what is getting the most traction
  6. Over time you’ll learn what your audience likes and what your audience doesn’t. And you can then optimize and increase your open rates throughout your email campaigns