When you write an email to somebody you likely want them to do something, like answer a question, buy your product, review a report, schedule a meeting, read your newest post, etc.

You get the gist.

A good email is clear about what you want the reader to do next.

When you call someone you commonly explain why you are calling within your first sentence. It’s really odd if some stranger calls you and just states his name. You want to know why he is calling, right? You quickly want to know what they want from you.

To speak in internet marketing terms, each of the two examples has a clear “call to action”.

Think about these endless sales pages, with video, customer praise, list of features and so on. It is pretty obvious what their call to action is: “Push this screaming yellow ‘buy’ button!”. All credit cards accepted. (more…)