Email copywriting needs to be a valued portion of any email marketing program. Opening a beautifully designed email with sub-par email copy equals the feeling of opening a treasure chest that’s empty. It holds no true value. Writing engaging email copy provides substance to your campaigns. It ties together your creative design, subject line, and call-to-action (CTA), and it is the reason people click through. Good copy in email provides a holistic piece of content that adds value to your subscribers.
Now that we’ve established the necessity of good copy in email, here are some tips on how to actually make good copy in email a reality.
1. know your audience
When an author writes a book, he/she always keeps the audience in mind. Your audience determines the language you use, the styling of your text, the tone of your writing, and the consistency in imagery. The same idea holds true for good copy in email. If you do not know exactly how to talk to your audience, you will not be able to persuade them to click. And email is all about the click-throughs.
2. be personal
The personal feeling of your emails should not stop at the auto-filled merge tag that includes the reader’s first name and gets pulled into the copy. You should almost always write in the second person for good copy in email. It shows your readers that you are focused on them and not yourselves. Nobody likes to be around people that are selfish, and nobody wants to do business with companies that are selfish. Good copy in email should always engage the reader and make them feel like you know them.
3. be relevant
Value-added content remains the key to brand relevance in email engagement. Consumers don’t want their time wasted. Subscribers don’t want to open an email that would have been better-off if sent a week ago. Over 55% of consumers say that they appreciate brands more when they give them content that is relevant. For example, relevancy means sending a birthday automation to your consumers, and writing copy that is tailored to their segment and behavior. That means you need multiple sets of copy in email, that way you can pull that content based on the type of automation being sent. Relevancy means that if you are updating your terms of service, you can write good copy that is direct and informative. Which leads into the next point.
4. subject lines need to preview the good copy the email
Your subject line should directly preview your body copy for the email. Therefore, you should never mislead your subscribers or make promises that you can’t keep. Instead, create trust by piquing the interest of your subscribers and then following through with good body copy in the email. The more that you deliver in the body copy based on your subject lines, the more trust you can create.
5. write copy in email that is actionable
The main goal in every email is the click-through. Therefore, you need to be using actionable language to engage subscribers and get them to make decisions within a specified time frame. Good copy in email needs to provide unity between the subject-line, the body copy and the almighty CTA. Actionable emails are created through storytelling, urgency, relevancy, and more. You need to tote the benefits of the action you want the subscriber to take, and then guide them directly to the CTA.
conclusion
Remember that good copy in email provides the avenue to decision making for subscribers. Good copy in email includes the subject-line, body copy, and CTA. Furthermore, they all should all be continuously A/B tested and tweaked to see which ones perform better with your target audience. Don’t have beautiful templates with sub-par email copywriting. Do what it takes to invest in good email copy.
As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions about any facet of your email marketing program. And remember that WhatCounts is a full service email agency that can provide you with direction on a wide array of email marketing necessities, including good copy in email.
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