Here at CANDESCENT, we’re fascinated by the results email marketing yields. It’s efficient and offers huge rewards for businesses. But, writing a great email is a complex process. Part of the complexity is knowing what to say and how to say it, so that your audience remains engaged enough to convert into customers.
Want to know how you can perfect your email copy so that it keeps your audience intrigued by and interested in your brand? Look no further, as we’ve compiled a list of our top copywriting secrets to transform your emails!
In this blog, you’ll learn:
- The benefit of having exceptional email copy,
- Our top 6 copywriting secrets for your emails.
WHY SHOULD I PERFECT MY EMAIL COPYWRITING SKILLS?
There are so many benefits to writing compelling email copy, the most important being that it presents your brand in a polished, professional manner. If your email copy is on point, you are going to present the impression that you are a business who knows what it’s doing. If your copy lacks finesse, it may appear that you lack the experience or knowledge that your competitors have; this may discourage customers from investing in your business.
In addition, how well your copy reads is paramount for showing how much interest and passion you put into the emails themselves. Perfecting your copy will make your customers feel as though you are prioritising your communication with them and that you value the connection the email channel provides. Overall, this will contribute to establishing a positive image for your business and will make customers more inclined to support and remain loyal to you.
So we know that perfecting your email copy is important, but how exactly do we go about perfecting it? Here’s how…
THE TOP 6 COPYWRITING SECRET FOR YOUR EMAILS
When you send an email, you want to work to three main goals:
- Engage your reader: The first step is encouraging your reader to open and read your email. This will ensure they read the information you need them to so that their interest is piqued.
- Encourage them to take action: The next stage in the chain is encouraging the reader to take action (for example, going to your website to find out more about your products/services).
- Convert the reader into a customer: The final level is the reader’s decision to become a customer and purchase from your business.
The way you can ensure your emails are hitting the three goals above is by nailing your email copy. Email marketing is your chance to engage, encourage and convert, as you have a direct line of communication to your potential customer and therefore you have the ability to showcase the very best of your business through inspiring email content.
Let’s look at some of the ways you can transform your email copy…
- Use creative subject lines,
- Use the FAB technique,
- Keep is short and sweet,
- Write in the second person,
- Keep it relatable and easy to understand,
- End your email with a call-to-action.
1. USE CREATIVE SUBJECT LINES
Because 47% of people open emails based on the subject line, it’s important to ace them. The subject line frames the email as a whole – it sets the tone, it serves as the first impression, and it could be the make or break of your email marketing strategy. After all, if customers are put off from opening your emails at the first hurdle, all your hard work creating that email has gone to waste.
The subject line is the perfect place to encourage people to open your email, so make it count. Ideas for exceptional subject lines may include asking questions (‘Do you ever experience x’?) that you and your business have the answers to, sparking curiosity (‘My thoughts on starting your own business…’) to pique interest and compel people to read on, or an announcement (‘It’s here – introducing the launch of our new x’) to encourage customers to find out more.
Research also shows that emails containing personalization in the subject line are 22% more likely to be opened. Think about adding a personal touch to your subject lines – this doesn’t only include addressing the customer by name (‘Sally, you’ll love these new products…’), but also involves using email segmentation to your advantage. Segmentation is the process of categorizing your customers and the emails you send them based on their personal interests. If a customer has recently purchased Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, sending an email with the subject line ‘Loved ‘Jane Eyre’? Try ‘Villette’ next!’ offers you the opportunity to recommend another book your customer may be interested in. This level of personalisation will go a long way – it shows you are thinking about the customer as an individual, and it will encourage them to open the email and find out more as they know you’re telling them about something they’ve shown interest in previously.
2. USE FAB TECHNIQUE
You’re more than likely using email marketing to increase consumer interest in a product or service you are promoting. But how exactly do you showcase this product/service in the best light?
When structuring your content, give the FAB technique a go…
- Feature: Tell your readers about the stand-out aspects of what you are promoting.
- Advantages: Think USP. How is your product/service better than anything the reader is currently using or anything else they can find elsewhere on the market or purchase from your competitors?
- Benefits: What will the customer gain from purchasing the product/service?
We love the FAB technique, as it’s a great formula to follow for providing structure to your emails, all whilst ensuring you’re providing the reader with the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. Showing your readers why they should care about your product/service and how they can take advantage of it will contribute to encouraging your customer to go ahead and make the purchase!
3. KEEP IT SHORT AND SWEET
The average attention span of a millennial is a mere 12 seconds. That isn’t a very long time, right?
The longer your emails are, the more work your customers have to do to engage with your emails. Combined with the fact our attention spans are increasingly short, you don’t want to give your customer a reason to swipe off your email before they’ve got to the information you need them to know.
When writing your emails, work on the provision that you have 12 seconds to capture your customer’s interest to ensure they stick around for longer. Once that window’s up, you’ve lost them. Try sending shorter, snappier emails, aiming for a lower word count and making sure that every single word counts. Tell them the information they absolutely must know, and leave out anything you think may distract them from the key information.
This goes hand in hand with ensuring you are prioritising clarity of expression and ensuring the content remains succinct, so customers don’t have to work hard to understand what you’re trying to tell them. It might help to bullet point the key details, or seperate the text so it is spaced out across the screen rather than concentrating the text into long paragraphs.
4. WRITE IN THE SECOND PERSON
It’s all about the customer, right? What better way to show that you value the reader of your email than by speaking directly to them.
Address your customer using ‘you’, ‘your’ and other second person pronouns. Using phrases like ‘Our products can help you…’ places the customer at the heart of your business. Automatically, the reader will see themselves as a customer, as you are encouraging them to think about how your business fits into their life. This is complimented by showcasing the benefits of your products/services to your customer, as you’ll be demonstrating what is in it for the customer by addressing them directly.
What is more, using the second person ensures your emails remain value oriented. Instead of showing that you only care about what you can gain from the customer when they purchase from your business, you’ll be showing them that your top priority is creating meaningful products/services for them. Remember, it’s all about the customer.
5. KEEP IT RELATABLE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND
There’s nothing worse than reading an email with lots of jargon you can’t understand, right?
Adding value to your emails is not only about ensuring the content itself is interesting and relevant to your reader, it’s also about keeping in mind how the reader will react to how you present it. Using convoluted phrasing and vocabulary people have to search in the dictionary places distance between your business and the reader; not only is it more time consuming for them, it may make them less likely to continue reading if they feel as though there’s something preventing them from learning and understanding about your business through your emails. This may even lead them to unsubscribe from your emails altogether, which means zero purchases from that individual.
Keeping in mind the 12 second window, try to keep your emails as consumable as possible. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and think about the kind of emails you’d like to receive from a business you’re interested in but may know little about – how would you like the key information to be communicated to you?
6. END YOUR EMAIL WITH A CALL-TO-ACTION
You’ve succeeded in maintaining your reader’s interest and you’ve convinced them that your business is the way forward. But what now? How do we make sure the reader becomes the consumer?
The final stage to perfecting your email copy is telling them the ‘what’s next.’ What do you want them to do now? You might want them to journey to your website to make a purchase, download one of your guides, or follow you on social media. You can achieve this by using actionable language, such as ‘Intrigued? Head over to our website to make your purchase!’ or ‘Hit the Follow button now!’ This will encourage your reader to go ahead and finalise their purchase.
Make the reader’s experience as simple and easy as possible by adding a link to your website to accompany your call-to-actions, so you don’t lose them on the way to typing in your website into their web browser manually.
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There are so many positives to be gained through nailing your email copywriting strategy – all in all, it will contribute to increasing interest, higher conversions and many sales for your business!
We love email marketing here at CANDESCENT, and we’d love to hear how you’ve been getting on with your email marketing strategy! Let us know on our social media @WeAreCandescent
Image Credits: © Melon at Social Squares / © Andrea Piacqua