Email marketing is a crucial part of running any business today. For an effective email marketing campaign, you need to be able to write an email that achieves a reasonable conversion rate. However, this process doesn’t have to be intimidating. We’ve gathered the most essential tips to help you craft that perfect email.
Choose an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line
Start your emails off on the right foot with a great subject line. You need the subject line to grab recipients’ attention, as the subject determines whether people even read the email. Even the best-written email won’t convert if no one reads it.
To create an engaging subject line, you should make sure that the subject line:
- Implies a benefit to reading the email
- Offers a deal or a discount
- Is timely
- Is personalized
Take Advantage of Preview Text
In addition to the subject line, the other preview text is crucial in determining whether a recipient opens your email. This little bit of text is displayed in the recipient’s inbox and gives a hint of the email’s content. The preview text will be 35 to 140 characters depending on the device and email client.
You can take one of two approaches with the preview text. Use it to supplement your subject line. Or use it to highlight something else in the content to encourage people to open the email further.
Make Sure the Subject and Preview Text Are Relevant to the Body
While you want your email’s subject line and preview text to draw attention, you don’t want to do so in a way that misleads. So, always ensure that the text in these areas is relevant to the rest of your email.
The body of the email should flow smoothly from the subject and preview text. Otherwise, recipients will close your email. Even worse, having a misleading or irrelevant subject line can hurt your reputation and cause people to unsubscribe.
Use Short Paragraphs
When formatting the content within your email, follow the same best practices for a blog post or your website. Keep your sentences short and sweet, and stick to paragraphs just a few lines long. Break up the text with paragraph breaks and bullet points. The goal is to make the email easy to read or even skim.
Keep It Conversational
The overall tone of your marketing emails should be conversational. You want the recipient to feel as if you are a friend talking to them, so use second-person pronouns. This will help you build relationships with your clients, boosting engagement and pushing them along the sales funnel.
Don’t Overuse All Caps and Exclamation Marks
Part of keeping the tone in your email conversational is avoiding “shouting.” All caps seem like shouting online, so while you can occasionally put a single word or two in all caps for emphasis, don’t overuse it. The same is true of going overboard with exclamation points.
Choose Words to Stir Emotions
As you write marketing email copy, consider the language you want to use. Overall, you should try to stir the readers’ emotions. Including sensory words helps readers build an emotional connection with what you’re saying. Analogies can also be incredibly useful when it comes to evoking emotions.
Use Psychology to Your Advantage
With any type of marketing, including email marketing, you want to take advantage of psychology to encourage conversions and action.
Fear of Missing Out
One of psychology’s most valuable elements is the fear of missing out. This is why many marketing emails have scarcity or urgency, and limited-time offers are so effective.
Social Proof
Social proof is a phenomenon where people copy others’ actions when unsure of how to behave in a situation. One way to use social proof in your emails is to highlight customer testimonials or awards your business has received. You can also include press mentions or even customer usage statistics.
This information gives email recipients more reasons to trust your brand. As a result, your emails get a much higher chance of a conversion.
Include Photos of People
When choosing images for your email, include at least some with faces. These will elicit more of an emotional response and connect to the recipient.
Segment and Personalize
Segmentation and personalization go together, as you need to segment your contact list to personalize the emails better. This will ensure that you only send emails to people who will find them helpful. You won’t overload your subscribers with irrelevant emails, as that could lead to them unsubscribing.
Consider using email marketing software to automatically insert the recipient’s name or recent purchase into the email. At the very least, segment your audience based on categories such as where they are in the sales funnel, recent purchases, and demographics.
Include a CTA
Every email you send should have a goal, and you will use a call to action or CTA to work toward that goal. Not including a CTA is a missed opportunity.
The tricky part is choosing a call to action that makes sense for your email. You don’t want to push for a sale in every single email. Yes, some emails will have a CTA encouraging a purchase with a coupon code. But others should encourage something like reading a relevant article on your website or sharing feedback.
Do A/B Testing
A/B testing is a great tool for perfecting your email marketing copy. Use it to see what subject line or CTA performs best. You can also use A/B testing to compare formatting, images, and copy used in your email. You should also look at other analytics, such as clickthrough, open, and bounce rates.
The Bottom Line
Writing an email that converts starts with an attention-grabbing subject line and engaging preview text. From there, keep the tone conversational and format the content to be readable. Include a clear CTA at the end that aligns with your overall goals.
Lastly, don’t forget to review metrics for your email marketing and consider A/B testing to optimize your email entirely.
