Any top ten list of what should be in a direct marketing email will include a call to action, that is a click through to the offer. It will be on any top two list as well. It is the whole reason for the email.

But don’t just call: demand. No matter how cool people think they are, the majority respond to being told how to react. Even those who walk on the wild side will generally follow instructions. All you have to do is make it easy for them to do as they are told. It helps if you tell them how clever they are being, how they will rise in the estimation of their peers or, the killer, how much they will save.

With delete buttons so prominent and populating email lists being so expensive, frightening people into compliance is not cost effective. Convince them that it will be the best thing they will do all day.

For all the benefits of subtlety and refinement, you should place a call to action somewhere near the top of the email. Your first few lines might have convinced the reader that the offer is just what they want, the one thing that will make their life complete. Do not make this person have to wander through paragraphs of copy when all they want is the product. Other people, however, will still need convincing.

Stage the argument. Follow the initial broad outline of the new printer or new life on offer with some detail. If they have read so far all they might need that extra shove. Feature the call to action prominently again. But do not exhaust the offer completely.

If the reader is still not convinced but continues to read then go into the other benefits, that extra offer, the enhanced deal. They must be, after all, more than half-way there. That extra incentive, the belief that they have been clever to wait, could convince them to click through, if the link is conveniently there.

Do not just present them with the chance of benefitting from your offer, tell them to, and at every stage.