How to write an email that sells: the method direct mail has used for a hundred years

Before you write: who, what, why now

Most sales emails fail before the first word. Not because of the style: because it isn’t clear who they’re for or what they ask. Before you open the editor, answer three questions in writing:

1. Who am I writing to? Not “customers”: one person. “The mum who buys bread on Saturday mornings.”
2. What do I want them to do? One thing: book, buy that product, reply.
3. Why should they do it now? A real reason: genuinely limited places, a season, a deadline, a price that’s about to change.

If you can’t answer the third, your email will be read, liked… and put off. Forever.

The structure of an email that sells

1. Subject line: a clear promise or a question that stings (more in how to write subject lines).
2. Opening: go straight to the reader’s problem or desire. No “I hope this finds you well”.
3. The why: your solution and why it works. Facts, not adjectives: “48-hour proving” beats “delicious”.
4. The proof: a real review, a real number, a photo. Never invented: it gets found out, and it costs you dearly.
5. The offer: what they get, what it costs, what happens next. As clear as a receipt.
6. The reason to act now: a deadline or a limit, as long as it’s real.
7. One button: one call to action, with a verb. “Book your table”, not “Click here”.
8. The P.S.: many people read the subject, the first line and the P.S. Put the offer there in one sentence.

Write the way you talk at the counter

An email isn’t a brochure. It lands in the same inbox as messages from their mum and their accountant. Write the way you’d talk to them at the counter:

• short sentences, one idea per sentence;
• “you”, not “dear customer”;
• plain words: “price”, not “pricing proposition”;
• bold only for the sentence that matters;
• a real name in the signature, and a way to reply.

If a sentence doesn’t help sell or help understanding, cut it. The email nearly always gets better.

A complete example

A bakery that wants to fill its Christmas cake orders could write something like this (with its own real numbers, not these):

• Subject: The Christmas cake that always sells out by the 20th
• Opening: “Last year, a week before Christmas, we had to say no to a lot of you. This year we want to say it to as few people as possible.”
• The why: “Fruit soaked for a week, fed with brandy, baked in small batches. We make 30 a day, not one more.”
• The proof: a real customer review, with their name if they’ve given permission.
• The offer: “Order now and collect any day up to the 24th. Pay when you collect.”
• The deadline: “Orders close when the oven is full.”
• The button: “Order your Christmas cake”
• P.S.: “Want two? Order them together: the second is the one that runs out first.”

Mistakes that lose sales

• Talking about yourself (“we’re market leaders”, “our passion”) instead of the reader.
• Three offers in one email. People with too many choices don’t choose.
• Fake urgency. Customers notice by the second “last day”.
• A hidden price. If they have to hunt for it, they leave.
• Sending once and disappearing. Someone who doesn’t buy today may buy after the second or third email: plan a follow-up.

Not a natural writer? In Spedito the AI drafts an email from your request, improves it and suggests three subject lines (writing with AI). Then you polish it: nobody knows your customers better than you.

Frequently asked questions