Page 1 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

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1 1 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

2 The Subject Line 1. Does the Subject Line describe the ? Is it interesting? Say that you want to send an to a prospect offering them a valuation for their home. Consider the difference between the following two subject lines: 1. Curious about your home s value? 2. Home Value Report for 1114 East Cesar Chavez Street Which of these messages would you open? It might surprise you, but historical testing and analysis reveals that the most effective subject lines describe the contents of the . This means that, on average, people are more likely to open s that have subject lines similar to example #2. These types of subject lines build trust between you and the recipient. Because you are being up front with your audience, rather than using sales tactics, people who open s with a descriptive subject line are more likely to read future s from you. Moreover, describing the contents of the in the subject line provides a valuable editing moment for us. If the body of the message doesn t contain something interesting and useful, then the subject line won t be engaging or descriptive. Therefore, in order to write a descriptive subject line, we are forced to make sure we are in fact providing something useful to the recipient. 2 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

3 2. Does the Subject Line contain any non alphanumeric characters? Non alphanumeric characters are symbols such as asterisks * and brackets " [. These symbols can be a great way to call attention to your message, but be careful. Excessive use of these characters is a trigger for spam filters. A subject line like *******Are You [[[[Missing]]] Out on Your Next Home??????******* will be flagged by spam filters, sending your message to junk and preventing your future messages from being delivered. 3. Does the Subject Line contain the word Guarantee? The word guarantee is another word associated with spammers. If you have a money back guarantee, for example, mention it only in the body of your and keep it out of your subject line. This will help keep your out of Spam. 4. Is the subject line personalized? Studies also show that recipients are more likely to open s with personalized subject lines. And those results make a lot of sense. s that have the recipient s name in the subject line suggest that the message isn t a blast sent to a huge audience and instead imply that what they re reading was written specifically for them. In this way, personalized subject lines promise to offer something inherently more valuable to the recipient. 3 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

4 The Sender 5. Is the recipient familiar with who you are? The subject line and from field are the first pieces of information a recipient sees about an . Therefore, it s also important to consider what displays in the from field of your messages. People are more likely to open s from the following: 1. People they know personally, 2. People they are familiar with or have heard of, 3. People they think they may have met in person, and 4. People they may want to know. For example, if a person requested information from your companybranded website, they will expect to receive that information from your company. And remember, though you may consider your company and you to be one and the same, others may not. Therefore, you may consider having the name of your company in addition to yours in the from field (a), or you could mention the company name in the subject line (b): From: Chris Scott [GoodLife Realty] Home Value Analysis from GoodLife Realty 4 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

5 6. Does your look like it s from a real person? All of us have been trained to tune out messages. s coming from a company, organization, or entity easily get lost in the inbox because there s not a real person on the other end of the message. People are more likely to read s, however, when it appears as though the message has been specifically crafted for them, just like any other sent to them by a real person. 5 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

6 The Body 7. Are you providing informational value or offering help? When people read s, they are always looking for the relevance the message contains for them. Imagine that while they re reading, they re silently asking themselves, "What s in it for me?" You ll want to explicitly answer their unvoiced question as earlier as possible in your . The sooner you do this, the more reason the reader has to keep reading what you have to say. 8. Are you addressing the recipient personally? Once your has been opened, you need to make sure it actually gets read. An easy way to do this is to personalize the body. It has been said that a person s favorite word is the sound of their own name. Even if they don t admit that fact openly, their name definitely will pop out to them in an , and this will cause them to start reading your message. Moreover, by personalizing the , it forces you to make your writing more conversational. You ll start writing as though you were composing an individual . This is crucial for s because as we ll discuss in in more detail the next point if the appears to have been crafted for that person, they are more likely to read it. 6 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

7 9. Does your sound like you? It sounds obvious, but it s important for your recipient to be able to understand your message. Therefore, when penning s, try to be conversational in nature. It s easier for the recipient to read and process the content of your message if it s written in layman s terms. Often, however, writers will use corporate speak. Corporate speak consists of jargon and oddly-phrased sentences you would never use if talking with the person in real life. To make sure you eliminate the corporate speak in your messages, try this. After writing your s, read them out loud. You ll be able to hear if your sounds the way you would talk to someone over the phone or in a meeting. Also, don t be afraid to add your own personality! Bland language can be as much of a turn off as alienating jargon. 10. Are there too many images in your body? Images automatically lend an interesting element to your message. But beware: s that fail to load into the client s browser, or contain too many images, may get flagged as spam. Even if they make it past spam filters, messages that are unnecessarily image-laden are likely to get sent to the reader s Trash. Images in your should have a purpose. They should either contain specific branding, be used to get attention, or pertain specifically to the body of the . The question to ask is "Does this image add value to my message?" 7 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

8 11. Is there a clear Call To Action in the body of your message? A Call to Action is exactly that: it s an explicit request for your reader to do something. It s the whole reason you re sending the in the first place! Reply to this , Click Here, and Schedule a Meeting Now are all examples of calls to action. Every message you send out should contain a Call to Action, and there should typically only be one Call to Action per message. They should be easy to spot and simple to understand. The P.S. section is one of the best places to add a Call to Action because often times recipients will skip down to the P.S. and only read that portion. 12. Are the facts in your accurate? Basic proofreading is of course important, but even more damaging to an than poor grammar is incorrect information. There is no faster way to break trust with your readers than a broken link or mistyped phone number. Therefore, before you send your message, be sure you double-check your for the accuracy of these big items: 1. Your phone number, website, and other contact information 2. Dates and times of offers or events 3. Pricing for listings or products 4. Links to any landing pages or websites 8 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

9 Sending the 13. Is your formatted for mobile delivery? Mobile delivery is a huge factor in today s marketing world. Sixty-six percent of is now read on a smartphone or tablet. If your doesn t format for a small screen, chances are good that it won t get read. If you don t have an marketing app that automatically formats your messages for mobile devices, consider using text-only messages or signing up for such a service. 14. What is the frequency of s the recipient is getting from you? Consider for your recipients how many messages they ve received from you and the time between sent messages. You don t want to overwhelm the reader with too many messages, but you also don t want too much time to pass between messages because they may forget who you are. The golden rule is the best way to regulate message frequency. Write down the number of s you want to send to a person and the amount of time between each message. Then ask yourself what you would think if you were receiving these s in this timeframe. Is it way too much? Could you add a few more touches in the sequence? 9 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent

10 15. Does my message comply to CAN-SPAM Act? The CAN-SPAM Act, contrary to its name, is the United States law that attempts to minimize spamming. It sets the rules for how we send and interact with commercial messages. In this checklist, we ve talked about a lot of ways to avoid the Spam folder, but there a few more bullet points that are important to follow in order to comply with this law, including how you handle opt-outs. To review all the components of the CAN-SPAM Act, please click here. 10 of 10 (C) 2015 The Paperless Agent