If you want people to pay attention to you over the long term, there's got to be some kind of payoff for them.

Otherwise they simply stop reading.

The obvious payoff is the value and results they get from your emails. But there's also a payoff for your readers in your emails simply being interesting.

I hesitate to use the word ‘entertaining' because it's not like they need to be laugh-a-minute or great works of drama. In fact, I think that can be counterproductive.

But by spicing up your emails a little you can maintain interest and ensure people get the messages you're trying to send.

Ultimately, how you make your emails interesting is a function of your personal style and how you want to come across.

Some people are loud and controversial. Others are funny. Others are thoughtful with deep insights. You have to kind of grow into your own style.

But here are some thoughts on different ways of making your emails interesting that might give you a good starting point.

• Firstly, try to focus on making one main point per email
  – otherwise your emails get confusing and boring
• Use stories. You could do the whole email as a story in parable/fable style. Or my preferred style is to use a “micro-story” as an introduction to your main point – a few sentences to set the scene.
• Use interesting analogies and comparisons your audience won’t have seen before
• Include surprising or contrarian ideas
• Share “behind the scenes” information and “what’s working now” from what you're doing in your life and how that relates to what you're teaching
• Hook into current events (though avoid the overused “5 leadership lessons from the Olympics” every 4 years)
• Write a series of related emails so that readers look forward to the next email in the series

You don't have to use all of these different techniques. I tend to tell personal stories, use series of emails, and throw in the odd quirky reference that happens to grab me at the time and make me smile.

Play around with different approaches. See which you enjoy. See which get a response from your readers.

No matter how valuable your emails are, your readers can only take so much raw information. That's why the most popular non-fiction books aren't textbooks – they're written by people like Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Bryson and Ben Goldacre who know how to tell a good tale.

We don’t have to quite hit those levels. But we do need to keep our emails interesting if we want people to keep tuning in, hearing our messages, and eventually being ready to buy from us.