Years ago I realized my agents weren’t really reading my emails. So I did something a little different. I started using ridiculous subject lines like “Free Puppies,” “Monkeys at the Circus,” and “Alien Abduction,” and guess what? It worked. They opened them. They laughed. And most importantly, they actually read the email.

That sent me down a rabbit hole. If I have important things people need to know, what actually makes them pay attention? And if my agents are sending marketing emails, what works? What I found was surprisingly simple.
Write like a 3rd grader.

I had read some research from Boomerang, which showed that emails written at a third-grade reading level got 36% more responses than emails written at a college level and 17% more than ones written at a high-school level. Not because people aren’t smart, but because people are busy. Long sentences and fancy words make your brain tired. When an email feels like work, people don’t want to read them.

So I started writing like a third grader. Shorter sentences. Simpler words. One clear idea. And my response rates went up.

There was another thing that surprised me: emotion matters. Emails that were overly positive or overly negative mattered, and so did overly neutral — no one wants a robot or a lunatic (or to go back in time to revisit the EST organization… many of you born after 1995 have no idea what EST is, and that’s a good thing; they drove me crazy). Overly positive sounds fake. Overly negative sounds like a meltdown. An email with a real tone — just human, honest emotion — is where the magic happens.

Write short (but not too short!) emails. The sweet spot for email length is between 50–125 words, all of which yielded response rates above 50%. Those five-paragraph emails that could have been three sentences? They’re the reason people don’t reply or actually read your email.

Subject lines also play a bigger role than most of us realize. Three to four words performs best. Not novels. Just enough to make someone want to open it. And if you ask one to three questions in your email, your response rate jumps by about 50%. Not zero. Not ten. Just a few thoughtful questions.

And here’s the part that matters most right now: we are all drowning in emails that sound like AI. The overused emoji rocket ships and checkmarks. The perfectly polished, slightly soulless tone. Our brains can spot it instantly, and when we do, we tune out. People don’t respond to perfection. They respond to authenticity.

So when you are writing those marketing emails and you want them to be opened, remember this: Say less. Say it simply. Say it like a real person. And if all else fails… try “Free Puppies.”