The message is the most important part of our work, but also sometimes is the first to get overlooked. Put yourself in the position of the recipient. You’re a business and have stuff to say and that’s great, but now more than ever, we need to think about our audience. How are we being useful to them? What value do we have? how do we present that in their terms?
It’s sometimes easy to use cheap tricks to grab some attention. Every time we do, we use up a bit of the trust our audience has, and that takes a long time to build back up.
Sometimes there can be an afterthought, but the most effective ones get people interested without being dishonest or scammy. They’re not office email subject lines - If you’re doing a covid/continuity related email, tell the key news rather than just “covid update” or “a message from the CEO”
If you’re stuck for ideas, take a look at Really Good Emails, which has lots of examples of… really good emails.