Why I don’t put salutations in my emails

Published: Tue, 12/19/17

Once upon a time I was asked about salutations:

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Dear Ben

Greetings and felicitations!

I'm curious as to why you don't use a salutation in your (irreverent, often entertaining but, honestly, can be a wee bit misogynistic) email missives?

Surely a little, "Dear Friend" or "Dear Aspiring Email Copywriting Supremo", or even a casual "Howdy" or "Hey there!" wouldn't go amiss?

Gosh, you know, it's even possible these days to . Amazing!

Personal and engaging is good, no?

Or perhaps, against prevailing wisdom, it makes not one jot of difference?

Love to hear your views.

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Survey says:

If you know what you’re doing including or not including it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

But, you know what?

I don’t get surprised by questions like this.

Most copywriters and marketers live in “tactical” world, and don’t understand (nor have ever been taught, especially if their copywriting edu-ma-cation comes from the Internet) the concept of principle-based marketing and copywriting vs tactic-based. That’s why they focus on things like salutations and open loops (nothing will give a goo-roo fanboy a chubby faster than seeing an open loop in an email) or whatever in their emails, instead of just working at being a more engaging, personality-driven writer.

More:

As for any precious little lamb who needs to be greeted with a salutation?

Or who takes my chick jokes literally and not as entertainment?

Or who needs political correctness?

They can go trot back to their safe place.

We don’t want ‘em around here.

Back to being a more engaging, personality-driven writer:

The January “Email Players” issue has an example from a long-time subscriber I hung out with at our Wine Villains event last summer, that is a great "template" for writing engaging content. It was also a great example of how to be polarizing and turn your trolls into your unofficial marketing interns.

Anyway, the lessons in his email apply to any kind of persuasive selling.

(Email, video, face to face sales, whatever you do.)

Here’s where to subscribe to get the next issue in time:

http://www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle