How to Write a Marketing Email That Gets Opened

Okay, let’s be honest for a second: you’re staring at a blank compose window, the cursor’s blinking at you like it knows you’re stuck, and somewhere in the back of your mind a little voice is whispering that everyone else magically knows exactly what to say. I promise you, they don’t. If you want to know how to write a marketing email that people actually open, read, and click, the whole thing comes down to one deceptively simple idea: decide the single action you want a reader to take, then write every word to gently guide them there. One goal, one clear subject line, one warm human opening, a scannable body built around what they get, and one obvious call to action. That’s the entire skeleton. Everything else is just making it sound like you.

So here’s my promise, friend: by the end of this you’ll have a complete, repeatable system for writing a marketing email from scratch — the kind you can pull out every single time, whether it’s a welcome note, a product announcement, or a gentle nudge to a list that’s gone a little quiet. No fluff, no made-up “send at 10:02 a.m. for 34% more opens” nonsense. Just the honest method. Let’s dig in.

What actually makes a marketing email work?

Here’s the part nobody tells you: a marketing email isn’t a newsletter, a personal note, or a billboard — it’s a tiny, focused conversation with a job to do. And the emails that work all share the same quiet backbone. They know who they’re talking to, they want one thing, and they respect the reader’s time from the first word to the last.

Think about the last email that actually made you click. I’d bet it wasn’t the flashiest one in your inbox. It probably felt like it was written for you, it got to the point, and it made the next step feel easy and worth it. That’s the whole game. When you sit down to learn how to write a marketing email, you’re really learning how to be clear, kind, and useful under a very tight word count.

Every strong marketing email is doing three things at once. First, it earns the open — that’s your sender name, subject line, and preheader working together in the inbox before anyone reads a syllable of your actual message. Second, it earns the read — that’s your opening line and the way your body copy flows. Third, it earns the click — that’s your one clear call to action and the benefit you’ve promised. Miss any one of those three and the whole thing quietly underperforms. Nail all three and you’ve got something that feels almost effortless to the person receiving it.

How do you set one clear goal before you write?

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it’s the reason so many marketing emails feel muddy. Before you write anything, finish this sentence out loud: “The one thing I want a reader to do after reading this is ___.” Book a call. Read the new blog post. Grab the sale. Reply with a question. Download the guide. Whatever it is — pick one.

Why just one? Because every additional ask you stack on top splits your reader’s attention and lowers the odds they do anything at all. When you give someone three buttons, you often get zero clicks, because choosing is work and the inbox is a busy, distracted place. When you give them one obvious next step, you’ve made the decision for them, and that clarity feels like a kindness.

Here’s a little exercise I use: write your goal at the very top of your draft in brackets, like [GOAL: get them to start a free trial]. Keep it there the whole time you write. Every sentence, every link, every image either serves that goal or it’s clutter. When you’re done, delete the bracket. If a paragraph doesn’t nudge someone toward that single action, it’s probably a lovely paragraph that belongs in a different email. Save it. Send it later. One email, one job.

How do you write a subject line and preheader that get opened?

Let’s talk about the two lines that decide whether any of your beautiful body copy ever gets seen: the subject line and the preheader. These are your inbox handshake, and they work as a pair — which most people forget entirely.

Your subject line is the promise. It should spark curiosity, hint at a benefit, or name a moment the reader recognizes — without ever overpromising something the email doesn’t deliver. A few honest angles that tend to work:

• The specific benefit: “Your five-minute plan for a calmer Monday.”
• The gentle curiosity gap: “The email tweak I almost didn’t try.”
• The direct and useful: “New feature: schedule a whole week in one sitting.”
• The warm question: “Still juggling five apps to post one update?”

Notice what none of those do: they don’t scream, they don’t use ALL CAPS or a wall of emoji, and they don’t promise something the email can’t back up. That last point isn’t just about taste — a subject line that misleads people to get the open is exactly the kind of deceptive practice that erodes trust and can put your sending reputation at risk. Honesty in the subject line is both the right thing and the smart thing.

Then comes the preheader — that little snippet of text the inbox shows right after (or under) the subject. This is prime real estate that so many senders waste on “View in browser” or, worse, leave blank so the inbox grabs a random “Hi there” from your first line. Instead, treat the preheader as the second half of a sentence your subject started. If your subject is “Still juggling five apps to post one update?” your preheader might be “Here’s how to do it all from one calm dashboard.” Together they tell a fuller story and give the reader a real reason to open.

Subject lines are genuinely their own craft, and if you want to go deeper on the psychology, the formulas, and the little tweaks that make a subject feel irresistible, I wrote a whole warm walkthrough on how to write an email subject line that pairs perfectly with this. Read it right after this one.

How do you open a marketing email so people keep reading?

You earned the open — congratulations, that’s genuinely the hard part. Now don’t blow it with “I hope this email finds you well.” Please. Your first line has one job: make the second line irresistible. It’s the “see more” moment, and it decides whether all your careful body copy gets read or scrolled straight past.

The warmest, most effective openings usually do one of these:

• Name the reader’s real moment. “It’s Sunday night and your content calendar is still empty. I’ve been there.” Instant recognition.
• Lead with the payoff. “In about five minutes, you can have next week’s posts scheduled and off your plate.” They know exactly why they’re here.
• Open a small, honest loop. “There’s one setting I ignored for months that quietly doubled how much I got done.” Now they have to keep reading.
• Say something true and human. “Marketing email advice online is mostly noise, so let’s skip to what actually works.” Refreshing candor earns trust.

Whatever you choose, get to the point fast and make it about them. The reader is silently asking “what’s in this for me?” from the very first word, and your opening should answer it before they finish deciding whether to keep going. Warmth and specificity beat clever-for-clever’s-sake every time. You’re not performing; you’re starting a conversation with a friend who’s a little busy.

How should you structure the body so it’s easy to read?

Here’s a truth that’ll set you free: almost nobody reads a marketing email. They scan it. Their eyes bounce down the left edge, snagging on the first few words of each line, the bold bits, and anything that looks like a button. So your job isn’t to write dense, gorgeous prose — it’s to build something a distracted person can skim in ten seconds and still understand.

That means:

• Short paragraphs. One to three sentences. White space is your friend, not wasted room. A wall of text is a silent “delete me.”
• One idea per chunk. Each little block should carry a single thought. If you’re saying two things, make it two blocks.
• Front-load the good stuff. Put the most important words at the start of sentences and paragraphs, because that’s where scanning eyes land.
• Use bold sparingly. A few bolded phrases guide the skim. Bold everything and you’ve bolded nothing.
• Lists for anything with steps or options. Bullets and numbers are naturally scannable and give tired eyes a place to rest.

And here’s the golden rule of body copy: write about benefits, not features. A feature is what your thing is; a benefit is what it does for them. “Schedule posts across eleven networks” is a feature. “Set up a whole week of content in one sitting, then actually close your laptop on the weekend” is a benefit. People don’t buy the drill; they buy the hole in the wall — and honestly, they buy the picture that’s finally going to hang straight. Always translate what you offer into the calmer, easier, better moment it creates in the reader’s real life.

One more gentle warning: keep the whole thing focused on that single goal you set at the top. It is so tempting to cram in “and also check out this, and by the way we’re hiring, and here’s our podcast.” Resist. Every extra ask dilutes the one that matters. A short, focused email almost always outperforms a long, scattered one.

How do you write one call to action that people actually click?

Your call to action is the whole reason this email exists, so let’s give it the love it deserves. The biggest mistakes I see are having too many CTAs, burying the one that matters, or writing something so vague (“Learn more”) that it gives the reader no reason to move.

A CTA that gets clicked usually does these things:

• It’s singular and repeated, not multiplied. One action, even if you place the button twice — once mid-email and once near the end — so a scanner and a reader both find it. That’s very different from three different asks competing for attention.
• It’s specific and benefit-led. “Start my free plan” or “Grab my content calendar” beats “Submit” or “Click here” because it tells the reader exactly what they get on the other side.
• It stands out visually. A button, a bold link, or plenty of white space around it. If someone skims your email in three seconds, the CTA should be the thing their eye can’t miss.
• It lowers the perceived effort. “Takes about two minutes” or “no card needed” removes the little hesitations that stop a click. Reassure them the next step is small.

Write the words on the button in the first person and the present tense — “Show me the templates,” “Save my spot” — and read them as if you’re the one clicking. Does it feel easy and worth it? Good. If your marketing email is really more of a one-to-one pitch to a specific person or company, the structure shifts a little and gets even more personal; I broke that whole approach down in my guide to how to write a sales email, which is worth a read if closing a deal is your actual goal here.

Plain-text or designed: which kind of email should you send?

This question stresses people out more than it should, so let me make it simple. Both work. The right choice depends on your goal, your relationship with the reader, and honestly, your capacity.

Consideration	Plain-text (or lightly styled)	Designed (image-rich, branded)
Feels like	A personal note from a human	A polished announcement or catalog
Best for	Welcome notes, personal updates, re-engagement, replies	Product launches, sales, visual stories, events
Effort	Low — just write well	Higher — design and testing time
Deliverability feel	Often reads as a genuine one-to-one message	Reads clearly as a marketing broadcast
Watch out for	Can look plain for a big visual moment	Images can fail to load; needs mobile care

My honest, friendly advice? When in doubt, lean simpler than you think you need to. A clean, mostly-text email that sounds like a real person often outperforms a heavily designed one, because it feels personal and it loads instantly everywhere. Save the big, beautiful designed template for the moments that truly call for it — a launch, a seasonal sale, a visual story — and let your everyday emails feel like they came from a friend, not a factory. If you do go designed, remember every image should have descriptive alt text, because some readers block images by default and your message still has to make sense without them.

Why does mobile-friendly formatting matter so much?

Here’s a reality check that changes how you write: a huge share of people will open your email on a phone, standing in a line, half-distracted, with one thumb. If your email only looks good on a wide desktop screen, you’ve lost a big chunk of your audience before they’ve read a word. So we design for the thumb first.

What that looks like in practice:

• Keep it narrow and single-column. Multi-column layouts collapse awkwardly on small screens. One clean column just works.
• Make text big enough to read without pinching. If you’re squinting on your own phone, so is everyone else.
• Give your CTA button room and size. It should be easy to tap with a thumb — no tiny links crammed next to each other.
• Front-load everything important. Assume some readers only see the first screen. Your key message and CTA shouldn’t be buried below a mountain of scrolling.
• Always send yourself a test. Open it on your actual phone before you hit send to the world. You’ll catch broken spacing, giant images, and awkward line breaks every single time.

That last one is non-negotiable, honestly. The two-minute habit of sending a test to yourself and reading it on your phone will save you more embarrassment and lost clicks than any clever tactic in this whole article. Read it the way a rushed, distracted person would. If it survives that, you’re golden.

How do you stay honest and compliant without a law degree?

Let’s talk about the grown-up part, because it matters and it’s genuinely not scary once you understand it by function rather than by legalese. I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice — but there are a few honest practices that protect your readers and your reputation, and they show up in email rules around the world for good reason.

• Send to people who agreed to hear from you. Permission is the foundation of email marketing. Emailing people who genuinely opted in — signed up, bought something, asked to be added — isn’t just compliant, it’s why your emails get opened at all. Buying lists or scraping addresses is the fast track to spam folders and broken trust.
• Always include a clear, working unsubscribe. Every marketing email needs an easy, obvious way to opt out, and you have to honor those requests promptly. I know it feels counterintuitive to make leaving easy, but a healthy list of people who want to be there beats a bloated list of resentful captives every time. Let people go gracefully.
• Be honest about who you are. Your “from” name and sender address should truthfully identify you, and legitimate senders typically include a real physical mailing address in the footer. No disguises, no tricks.
• Don’t deceive in the subject line. The subject has to reflect what’s actually inside. “Re: your order” on an email about a brand-new sale isn’t clever — it’s the kind of deception that rules specifically prohibit and that readers never forgive.

See how none of that requires a legal team? It’s mostly just… being a decent, honest sender. Consent, an easy exit, a truthful identity, and a subject that keeps its promise. Do those four things and you’re aligned with the spirit of email regulations almost everywhere. If you operate in a specific region or handle sensitive audiences, it’s worth checking the exact rules that apply to you — but the honest defaults above will never steer you wrong.

What common mistakes quietly kill marketing emails?

Since we’re being real with each other, let me save you from the pitfalls I see over and over. Any one of these can sink an otherwise lovely email:

• No single goal. The email tries to do five things and accomplishes none. Pick one.
• A wasted preheader. Leaving it blank or filling it with “View in browser” throws away one of your best chances to earn the open.
• Talking about yourself. “We’re so excited to announce” — the reader isn’t excited yet; tell them why they should be.
• Features without benefits. Listing what your thing does without translating it into their better day.
• A wall of text. Dense paragraphs that punish scanning eyes and beg to be deleted.
• Too many CTAs. Competing buttons that leave the reader frozen and clicking nothing.
• Never testing on mobile. Sending something that looks broken to more than half your audience.
• Overpromising to get the open. Winning the click and losing the trust — a terrible trade.

If you catch even a couple of these in your drafts, you’re already ahead of most senders. Print this list, tape it near your screen, and run every email past it before you send. It’s a two-minute gut check that pays off forever.

How do you know if your marketing email actually worked?

Here’s where I have to be honest with you, because I refuse to make up numbers: I can’t tell you what a “good” open rate or click rate is, and anyone who hands you a universal benchmark is really just describing a giant average of wildly different senders that has nothing to do with your list. The only benchmark that matters is your own past performance.

So build a simple, honest feedback loop:

• Track your own baseline. After a handful of sends, you’ll see roughly how your list tends to open and click. That becomes your yardstick — not a stranger’s stat.
• Change one thing at a time. Test a subject line, or a CTA, or plain-text versus designed — but only one variable per comparison, or you’ll never know what actually moved the needle.
• Watch the actions that matter, not just opens. Opens are shaky to measure these days. Clicks, replies, and the real thing you wanted (sign-ups, sales, bookings) tell a truer story.
• Read the unsubscribes and replies. A spike in opt-outs after a certain kind of email is data. So is a warm reply. Your audience is constantly telling you what they want — listen.

Improving the number of people who even open your emails is its own worthwhile craft — it’s tied up in your sender reputation, your list health, your subject lines, and your timing. If that’s where you want to focus next, my guide on how to improve email open rates walks through the honest levers you can actually pull, with zero made-up benchmarks. It’s the natural next step once your writing is solid.

A simple workflow you can use for every email

Let me tie this whole thing into a checklist you can run every single time, so writing a marketing email stops feeling like starting from zero:

• 1. Name the one goal. Write it in brackets at the top. One action, one email.
• 2. Draft the subject and preheader as a pair. Honest, curious, benefit-aware — two halves of one thought.
• 3. Write a first line that earns the second. Warm, specific, about them. Never “I hope this finds you well.”
• 4. Build a scannable body. Short chunks, one idea each, benefits over features, bold used sparingly.
• 5. Place one clear CTA. Specific words, easy to spot, low perceived effort. Repeat the same action, don’t add new ones.
• 6. Add the honest essentials. Real sender name, truthful subject, and a working unsubscribe link.
• 7. Test it. Send yourself a copy, read it on your phone, click every link.
• 8. Send, then learn. Compare to your own baseline, change one thing next time, and keep a little log.

Eight steps. That’s it. Run this enough times and it becomes muscle memory — you’ll open a blank compose window and feel calm instead of stuck, because you’ll know exactly what goes where and why.

Your gentle next step

If you do just one thing after reading this, make it this: open a blank draft and write your single goal in brackets at the very top before you type anything else. That one small habit will reshape every marketing email you ever send, because it forces the clarity that makes everything downstream easier — the subject, the opening, the body, the one perfect call to action. You already know how to be clear, warm, and useful; now you’ve got the frame to pour it into. Go write something a real person will be glad they opened. You’ve got this, truly.

Frequently asked questions

How do you write a marketing email step by step?

Start by choosing one clear goal and the single action you want the reader to take. Then write a subject line and preheader that work as a pair to earn the open, a warm specific first line, a scannable benefit-driven body, and one obvious call to action. Finish by adding an honest sender name and a working unsubscribe link, then test the email on your phone before you send it.

What should the first line of a marketing email say?

Your first line should make the second line irresistible, so skip filler like “I hope this finds you well.” Name a moment the reader recognizes, lead with the payoff they’ll get, or open a small honest curiosity loop. Whatever you choose, make it specifically about the reader and get to the point quickly, because they decide whether to keep reading almost instantly.

How long should a marketing email be?

As long as it needs to be to serve its one goal, and not a word longer. Most marketing emails are better short and focused, because readers scan rather than read and every extra ask dilutes your main one. If you can make your point and earn the click in a few tight, scannable chunks, do exactly that and resist the urge to pad it.

Do I legally have to include an unsubscribe link?

Marketing emails should always include a clear, working way to opt out, and honoring those requests promptly is a core practice in email rules around the world. This isn’t legal advice, and the exact requirements depend on where you and your readers are, so check the specific rules that apply to you. In practice, an easy unsubscribe protects your reputation and leaves you with a healthier list of people who genuinely want to hear from you.

What is a good open rate or click rate for a marketing email?

There’s no single universal number worth chasing, because published benchmarks blend together countless very different senders, industries, and list qualities. The only meaningful yardstick is your own past performance, so track your baseline over several sends and aim to beat it. Focus on the actions that truly matter, like clicks, replies, and sign-ups, and improve by changing one variable at a time.