• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 8, 2017

Don’t believe the naysayers. Email prospecting is a robust activity, especially in B2B. But it’s a challenge when inboxes are as glutted as they are these days. How do you get people to open your emails and keep them from hitting “unsubscribe?”

Relevance is the first consideration. First, you have to know if the person is even slightly interested in your offer. Frequency is also important -- are you hitting them with it every day? And do they know who you are? In this age of malware, I’m afraid to open almost anything unless I have at least some idea of who sent it. 

Then there are my personal copy crochets. Speaking as a consumer, I dislike:

• Long lead sentences

• Subordinate clauses

• Compound modifiers

• Insinuating phrases

• Hype in general

But let’s drill down to what the experts think. Niraj Ranjan Rout, founder of Hiver, urges emailers to avoid boring or “click-baity” subject lines and to not babble in copy, in an article on MarTech. And while calls to action are important, he advises marketers to avoid overloading their emails with them.

“Multiple CTAs only confuse the audience and lead them not to click on either one,” Rout writes. “Narrow your focus in each email to one or two things. From my personal experience, I find that two CTAs work best:

“One CTA should be very specific such as ‘Download our eBook’, ‘Attend our webinar’ etc.

“The other CTA should be generic such as ‘Subscribe to our newsletter’, ‘Follow us on Facebook’ etc.”

BrainSins adds these two tips:

• Optimize your emails for mobile—over half of all emails are opened on mobile.

• Use images—but sparingly. You’re better of with three graphics or less. 

Why is the latter important? Because click-through rates fall off when you exceed that limit, PromotionWorld argues. Likewise, research shows that clickthroughs “drop off drop off fairly steeply if there are more than 20 lines of text overall.”

Here’s some additional suggestions from PromotionWorld.

1. Use a giveaway as a subscription incentive.
2. Avoid common spam terms such as:

• Cash
• Free
• Bargain
• Easy Qualifying Credit Card Offers

Is your response tanking even after doing all that? You should be testing everything—copy, offers, lists. Maybe you’re sneaking in too many product plugs and content about yourself. All sources agree that the focus should be on the reader, not you, as this old direct marketing poem reminds us:

Tell me straight and tell me true

Or else my friend the hell with you

Less on how this product came to be

And more on what it can do for me.