5 Lessons From One Stellar Email

Marketing messages, and emails especially, are everywhere. We all have flooded inboxes, and not enough time to read and engage with everything we’re sent. So when something does catch our eye, how does that happen?

Of course, there are as many ways to reach people effectively as there are different types of companies, messages, and approaches. So we’ll be exploring brand messages like emails and push notifications that make us open, click, engage… that get it right, and what about them was so great. Find them in our inspiration file.

Take a look at the first email up!

The email I loved

This promotional email from She Writes, an online community for women writers.

What made me click

1. The subject line and preview text are genuine

From the subject line, I feel like they know me. I don’t know if the women who power this newsletter are writers—though, I assume they are—but the headline makes me feel like I’m among people who get it.

The subject: “Kissing scenes and writing contests” is a bit cheeky, a bit funny, and perfectly relevant to anyone who writes fiction. If you write fiction, you’re bound at some point to run into the need to write a kissing scene, and it can be awkward! I’m happy to click on the link that addresses this challenge.

On my laptop, the visible first line of content was, “Connect with the truth in your writing,” which happens to be a headline that speaks to my personal goals as a writer, and I imagine has broad appeal for writers of many varieties. On my mobile Gmail app, the first line of content teased the kissing article. Both worked.

2. The rich content is easy to navigate

Once I clicked in, each group of content had an image associated with it, so that no link hunting was necessary. A reader need only click on the large image to get to the content.

3. The clean and simple layout is nice to look at

On both mobile and laptop web, the layout was consistent, clean, and organized. The email was as optimized and lovely on mobile as it was on the web.

4. The consistent “from” name has built trust

She Writes has kept their name the same since the day I signed up. Other email newsletters sometimes play with the style of their “sent from” title. I’ve definitely gone through the, “Who the heck is this!” followed by a quick unsub, when I didn’t recognize a name any more. She Writes is always She Writes. It’s a simple, familiar, and thereby trusted name in my inbox.

5. It didn’t ask for anything

It can sometimes seem like every email in my inbox wants me to do something, and usually that something is spend money. She Writes can sometimes ask me to do things, too, but on this day, the newsletter only offered things. Mirroring some of the values of real life relationships—values like symbiosis and reciprocity—are at the heart of building real long-term relationships, and this newsletter takes a stab at that by proffering a communication that asks nothing of me.

Simplicity is underrated

By keeping it simple, and offering content of value, She Writes hit the nail on the head with this email newsletter. It helps without selling, and informs without being too buttoned-up. The winning characteristic is probably its authenticity. She Writes has an identity, and if I met it at a party, I might want to stick around to get to know it better.