How to Write Emails That Get Opened and Clicked

The short version: Most email marketing fails because people write for the algorithm instead of the person. Write like you're texting a friend who might unsubscribe, use their first name once, tell them exactly what you want them to do, and test the subject line before you send it.

I've been writing emails for seventeen years. I've sent emails that made £40,000 in two days. I've also sent emails that got a 0.3 per cent click rate and I deserved it because they were boring.

The difference is not complexity. It's specificity and honesty.

The anatomy of an email that converts

Let me show you what works because I've tested it with my own list of about forty thousand people, and I've watched hundreds of other people's campaigns.

A converting email has five parts. Not four. Not six. Five.

• A subject line that makes someone want to open it (not tricks them)
• A greeting that sounds like a real person
• A problem they have, stated clearly
• One specific solution or thing they should do
• A call to action that is not wrapped in corporate language

If you add fluff, you lose them. If you add multiple asks, they freeze and do nothing. If you try to be clever in the subject line, they delete it.

Subject lines that work

I test every subject line. I do not guess. Guessing is why your emails sit unread.

Here's what I know converts for my audience:

• "I messed up" (honesty)
• "The thing nobody tells you about [specific problem]" (curiosity, not clickbait)
• "This changed how I [do something they care about]" (social proof, personal)
• Your name and a colon: "Lilach: why your email list isn't growing" (direct, familiar)
• "Bad news about [thing they're worried about]" (if it's true)

Subject lines that do NOT work for professional lists:

• Emojis (unless your brand is Buzzfeed)
• ALL CAPS
• Multiple question marks or exclamation points
• Anything that looks like spam ("You WON'T BELIEVE...")
• Anything promising something impossible

I split-test subjects with my email platform (I use Klaviyo, but ConvertKit works too). I send version A to half the list, version B to the other half, wait four hours, and send the winner to the rest. This takes five minutes. It's the difference between a 20 per cent open rate and a 35 per cent one.

How to write the body so people read it

The first line is the most important. Most people scan emails. They do not read them like a novel. Your first line needs to answer: "Why should I keep reading this?"

I usually do this:

"I got an email this week that broke every rule of email marketing I teach. It had three problems, a fifty-word paragraph, and a confused call to action. I opened it anyway because the subject line made me curious. Here's why it worked and why yours might not."

That is 43 words. I'm telling you what the email is about. I'm hinting at a benefit (you'll learn something). I'm not asking you to scroll. I'm not wrapping the point in marketing language.

Then I write short paragraphs. Two to four sentences. No paragraph longer than six lines in an email client. White space is not wasted space. It's what makes people keep reading.

I write like I talk. I use contractions. I say "I got annoyed" instead of "It was frustrating to witness." I swear occasionally if it fits. I am not writing a memo to the board of directors. I am writing to humans who have 200 unread emails in their inbox and could delete mine in half a second.

The call to action that works

This is where most emails die.

I see calls to action like "Click here to learn more" or "Discover more insights in our resource centre." These are the email equivalent of leaving a shop. Nobody does it.

Instead:

"Reply to this email and tell me one thing that didn't work in your last campaign. I read every reply and I answer the good ones."

Or: "Click below to sign up for the workshop. We're capping it at 50 people and we've got 34 so far."

Or: "I made a template for this. You can grab it here and use it tomorrow."

The pattern: be specific about what they get, why they should do it now, and what happens next. "Click here" tells them nothing. "Grab the template here and you'll have it before tomorrow" tells them why and when.

I use buttons in some emails, plain links in others. It does not matter as much as people think. What matters is the surrounding text makes the click obvious.

Length and frequency

I write long emails sometimes. 800 words. People read them if the first line hooks them and they get value on every scroll.

I write short emails sometimes. 150 words. People read those too if the subject is interesting and the link is clear.

The mistake is writing a medium email that's boring. 300 words of filler kills more campaigns than anything else.

As for frequency: I send two to three emails a week. My unsubscribe rate is 0.1 per cent. Some people send one a month and get 0.3 per cent unsubscribes. The frequency is not the problem. The content is.

Send what you have to say. If that's twice a week, send twice a week. If it's once a month, send once a month. Do not pad it to hit a quota. Do not skip a week because you're afraid of unsubscribes. Consistency beats perfection.

The technical bit that changes your open rates

Write your subject line in title case, not UPPERCASE or lowercase.

Keep it under 50 characters if you want the whole thing visible on mobile. I usually aim for 40.

Use your email client's preview text. That's the second line of text that shows next to the subject in the inbox. Make it count. Don't waste it on "View this email in your browser."

I write my preview text as a continuation of the subject. "Subject: The email you should delete. Preview:, you shouldn't."

Send from a real person, not "[email protected]." I send from "[email protected]" and put my name in the from line. Open rates went up by 8 per cent when I did this.

Use your email platform's spam testing. Klaviyo and ConvertKit both have it built in. Send a test to yourself first. If you land in spam on Gmail, fix it before you send.

The one thing that changes everything

Stop writing emails because you think you should. Write emails because you have something specific to tell someone specific.

That is the entire difference between a 15 per cent click rate and a 2 per cent one.

When I write to my list, I am thinking about the person who paid me 200 quid last year and has not heard from me in two months. I am thinking about the person who replied to an email asking for help with their first campaign. I am thinking about one specific email I received that made me think differently about something.

I am not thinking about metrics. Metrics follow when the writing is good.

The Subject Line Test I Run Before Every Send

Before I schedule any campaign, I read the subject line out loud and ask myself one question: would I stop scrolling for this if it came from a stranger? If the answer is no, I rewrite it. That single habit has done more for my open rates than any A/B testing tool I have used. For example, I once swapped "Our New Guide to Social Media Marketing" for "I made this after 200 client campaigns" and the open rate jumped from 18 percent to 31 percent on a list of roughly 12,000 subscribers. Nothing else about the email changed.

Here is what I have learned after sending thousands of campaigns over the years: specificity beats cleverness almost every time. "5 things I wish I knew before my first product launch" consistently outperforms "Launch Secrets Revealed" style subject lines, even when the second one feels punchier when you write it. Numbers work, but only when they are odd and precise rather than round. "7 mistakes" beats "10 mistakes" in my own testing, likely because round numbers read as generic listicle bait and odd numbers read as a real count someone tallied.

Timing matters more than most guides admit, and the advice to "test send times" is close to useless without a starting point. My own data across several B2B lists shows Tuesday and Thursday mornings between 9 and 10am consistently beat every other slot, sometimes by 8 to 10 percentage points on opens. Weekends are close to dead for B2B, with open rates dropping by nearly half. If you run a consumer list, ignore all of that. I have seen ecommerce clients get their best numbers on Sunday evenings, when people are relaxed and browsing on their phones.

One thing I rarely see mentioned: the preview text is doing half the work your subject line gets credit for. I treat it as a second sentence, not a repeat of the first line of the email. If your subject line asks a question, use the preview text to hint at the answer rather than restating the question. A client of mine tested this on a 40,000 person list and saw a 4 point lift in opens just from rewriting preview text to complement rather than duplicate the subject line, with everything else in the campaign left untouched.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I test subject lines?

Test every single email if you have a list bigger than 500 people. You'll spend five minutes and it will change your open rate. If you send one email a week and test consistently, you'll notice patterns in what works for your specific audience within a month.

Should I personalize emails with people's names?

Use their first name once, maybe twice in a longer email, but only if it feels natural. "Hi Sarah, I wanted to tell you something" feels friendly. "Sarah, here's what Sarah needs to know, Sarah" feels creepy. Personalization is about tone, not name-dropping.

What's the best length for an email?

As long as it needs to be. I've had 1200-word emails get a 40 per cent click rate and 100-word emails get a 5 per cent click rate. The difference is whether the reader cares about the topic, not the word count. Don't pad. Don't leave out important bits to stay short.

How do I know if my email is good before sending?

Read it out loud. If it sounds like you talking to a friend, send it. If it sounds like a corporate memo, delete it and start again. Then send a test to yourself on mobile and desktop. If you want to click the link or keep reading, other people will too.

Related reading: Work From Home as a Virtual Assistant: What You'll Earn and How to Land Clients and Virtual Assistant Work From Home: The Real Money, The Brutal Commute Savings, and Why You'll Quit in 9 Months.

For the bigger picture, see my full guide to email marketing.