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How to write sales email that work better

Why smiles bring more sales

A smile will always bring you more sales. But how to do that in an email promotion?

As many people who own or operate a retail outlet have realised across the world, if the sales staff in the shop can be cheerful, friendly and helpful, the shop gets more sales.

Yet clearly many store owners don’t realise this, (as indeed a visit to my local supermarket will instantly reveal!)

But how can one translate the welcoming smile and encouraging conversation of the friendly shop keeper, into an equally warm and positive welcome in a promotional email sent to teachers or school managers?

The traditional solution to this dilemma has been to assert that “we are a small, friendly, family run business” – a phrase that has the drawback of already being used far too often.  Besides which quite a few families are not actually that friendly, either to each other or to the outside world.

However interestingly, the act of smiling itself actually makes us more positive, warm, and friendly.  For the fact is that we see a smile as positive because smiling activates the muscles in one’s cheeks, which in turn initiates positive emotions in the brain.

Put another way, when we are smiling we have more positive emotions, no matter what is going on around us. 

So, if when talking to a potential customer on the phone, you smile, you will get a raft of positive emotions flooding through your brain.  This will change what you say and how you say it, and will encourage your potential customer to smile, which makes the customer smile, and hence encourages the individual to make a purchase.

Likewise, if when writing an email to a customer, you smile (even if you force yourself to smile) you generate more positive emotions in yourself then as a result the email you write, or the phone call you make, becomes more positive, friendlier and warmer.

Of course if you are in a really bad mood, this forced smiling may not be enough to overcome your negativity, and in such a case it is probably best to walk away from any communication with a potential customer.

But when you are feeling ok, try putting on the smile.

Now if you are like me you’ll probably find that after five or ten seconds you forget about the smile, and your face goes back to its default look.   That’s normal.  But if you can keep on reminding yourself to smile, then your promotions will become more and more smile related, and thus increasingly friendly, and thus more successful.

And after a while of practising writing promotional emails and web pages accompanied by a grin you’ll find a certain lightness will enter your writing, which again helps.

And there is another bonus, because through using this technique the level of stress that you feel will be much reduced – even though all you are doing is putting on a “forced” smile.

In fact, what you are doing is stimulating the emotional centre of the brain known as the amygdala and through this you are releasing positive neurotransmitters.  (But really you don’t need to know that).

Quite simply you are persuading your brain that you are happy.  And yes, it is a trick.  But also, yes, writing promotional copy when your brain thinks you are happy, tends to make you write better promotional emails. 

Which might lead you to ask – why doesn’t everyone do this?  

All smiles release the chemicals into the brain that makes us feel good.  It doesn’t matter if you have anything to smile at.  If you smile you will feel better.  And when you feel better you will write better copy.

And the fact remains that, whether you choose to believe it or not, advertisements written with a smile on one’s face tend to work better than advertisements written with a neutral facial express or a frown or a scowl.

Of course, if you don’t want to try this out, it doesn’t matter, because you can ask those jolly smiling people at Schools.co.uk to do it for you.  Just call Steve on 01604 880 927 or send a copy of a recent email you’ve written to Stephen@schools.co.uk and we’ll see if we can put a smile into the writing.

Alternatively you can send in a copy of your advertisement and we’ll have a look and let you know how we would write it in a different manner in order to make it work.

You don’t have to use our ideas of course, but I can tell you, they normally work rather well.

If you would like us to review an email you have sent to schools or you are about to send to schools, just send a copy to Stephen at the address above, or if you’d like to talk this through please phone 01604 880 927.

Or if you would like to know a little more about our service through which we offer to send your email to schools, complete with a guarantee there are details of our main services on the website

Tony Attwood

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