Email Marketing Copywriting Tips

Great copy can inspire and draw a reader in. As important as it is to have well-designed emails and imagery that complement your content, your copy needs to clearly convey your message. If you’re sending out email campaigns and you aren’t seeing the return you want, you might need to work a bit more on your copy content to ensure that you are gearing it towards your goals or conversion metric.

Even if your email marketing activities are getting really good returns, there is always the opportunity to improve and enhance your offer through content. If you are in a fortunate position to hire a dedicated email writer, do so. Email writers are experienced in the art of writing effective, high converting emails that keep your subscribers wanting more, and keep them buying from you.

If you can’t afford a writer, we’ve put together some copywriting tips for you to ensure you can improve your email copy.

First things first though, let’s get organised.

Set yourself up for success:

To ensure you are focusing on creating exceptional email content that connects with your audience, you want to ensure that you’ve got an email calendar planned out and ready to go.

An email calendar or schedule will help you map out your content efficiently and ensure you know what you need to focus on.

Next, you’ll want to ensure that you’ve created an email template that shows off the content you create in the best light. Email templates are extremely useful when it comes to planning and setting up your campaigns as they help you:

• Create consistency
• Save time
• include all the necessary standard information

Now we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of creating your copy.

Your copy needs to cover the following elements but can exclude certain elements depending on your template:

• Subject line
• Preheader Text (if you use this)
• A greeting
• Email body
• Call to Action
• Closing

Subject line

You want to create your subject line first. The subject line is your first line of defence when it comes to getting your subscribers to open your emails. You want to ensure that you describe the content of your email but at the same time not give away too much, so there is a reason for your subscriber to open your email.

Top copywriting tips for your subject line

• Keep your subject lines between 5 - 7 words
• Don’t use overly promotional language that can trigger spam filters
• Try to address a concern or need
• Don’t be afraid to use personalisation in your email subject line
• Create intrigue so readers want to find out more
• Don’t be afraid to use numbers in your subject lines like “7 Tips to create winning subject lines”

Dedicated Mail Blaze resources available to help you with your subject lines:

Increase your open rates with subject line formulas
Create winning subject lines

Preheader text

Some people choose not to use preheader text because it doesn’t display in all email clients. If you’d like to use it (which we’d recommend as it’s a nice touch) please add this to your campaigns. The first thing is to understand what preheader text is. By default usually, your preheader text shows the first line of your text in your email and could appear as per the below example. Here you will see the line “What would you do to succeed? is actually the preheader text.

This is a great way to create intrigue or to add a little bit of extra info. Email preview text ranges from between 35 to 140 characters. Utilising these extra characters are a great way to set you apart from the crowd.

MAIL BLAZE TIPS:

• Make sure your subject line and preheader make sense on their own.
• Find out what email clients the majority of your subscribers use and account for that

Which Email Clients support Preheaders and what are the maximum characters you can use?

*info correct at the time of publication and is subject to change.

Greeting

We’ve managed to capture our subscriber’s attention and they’ve opened your email.

YAY!

If your template allows, you’ll want to add a personalised greeting. It’s important to make sure that the greeting matches your brand style. So don’t be overly casual if you are in a serious industry but don’t be formal if people expect you to be informal.

Common greetings you could consider:

• Hi [FNAME]
• Dear [FNAME]
• Hello [FNAME]
• Hi there, [FNAME]
• Greetings, [FNAME]

Email Body

Now for the actual body of your email. This is a really important part of your email communication and usually, this is where most people get stuck.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to overwhelm your subscriber with too much text and information. Keep things short, clear and simple. Use your emails to invite and encourage subscribers to find out more about your content or products by enticing them to click out to key landing pages (such as product pages or specific blog posts).

Make sure that your body content relates back to your subject lines and what you promised them here to ensure they aren’t left disappointed.

If you’re struggling to stay “on point” it might be useful to theme your email to ensure you have a main theme you can stick to.

MAIL BLAZE TIPS FOR BODY COPY:

• Keep it short.
• Give a preview of content (so use the email to distribute your content that is housed in other places).
• Develop a voice. Follow your brand voice and tone guidelines to ensure that you are communicating in a consistent manner.
• Keep your tone personable and don’t use overly verbose jargon that your reader might not understand.
• Include power words in your email that will evoke emotion and help your reader to take action.

Call to Action

Now it’s time to add some calls to action. Calls to action are CRUCIAL. You want to make sure you drive people to action and direct them clearly to places that will further your goals.

Calls to action are links or buttons that direct people to other spaces that drive action. You want to ensure you lead the reader as well as making sure that your links work.

Depending on your content, you’ll want to use different calls to action. Below are some options:

• When linking to a product or service:
• Buy Now
• View Product Now
• Find out more

When linking to an event:

• Book your spot now
• Add to your calendar
• Set reminder now

When linking to an article:

• Read more
• More…

When linking to a resource:

• Free resource
• Download Now
• Get your copy

Closing

Close off your email nicely with a beautiful footer or sign off. This keeps the conversation going, but also gives a subscriber the opportunity to keep engaging with you.

General email copywriting tips

Copywriting do’s:

• Make sure you stay focused on your target audience’s needs (not just what you want them to do).
• Be polite in all your content, you don’t want to alienate anyone.
• Don’t be afraid to use questions to open up conversations.
• Consider your words carefully. Replace ambiguous words with one’s that can’t be misconstrued.
• Don’t be shy to tease your content in other areas a bit.

Copywriting don’ts

• Don’t be negative.
• Don’t slander your competitors.
• Don’t speak to a group - make it personal. Always remember that you are speaking to an individual.
• Stay away from cliches. It doesn’t help you stand out from the crowd.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our article to help you enhance your email copy. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.