[caption id="attachment_84" align="alignleft" width="160" caption="Writing Email Marketing Copy"]
[/caption]Writing effective email marketing copy can be tricky; grammatical errors, misspellings, the wrong tone and more can derail your e-mail campaign before it has a chance to get off the ground. We’ve put together the following guidelines to help you write successful email marketing copy:
The subject line is the first thing a reader will see of your email, so it needs to communicate your email’s message precisely and grab your audience’s attention. It’s marketing copy, you need to make sure it’s compelling and encourages readers to open your email – if there is an offer include the offerRemember, don’t use repetition of punctuation while writing email marketing copy (eg. ‘!!!!’) or words like ‘FREE’ in your subject line, these are red flags for SPAM filters.
Being genuine, conversational and enthusiastic is the key to creating great email dialogue. Sometimes when people write they come across as too formal and impersonal. Before you writing your e-mail, imagine you’re having a conversation with someone about the topic. Then try to write it as you’d say it.
Keep paragraphs short and simple as reading online is harder on the eyes than reading offline. Large blocks of text in an email can appear daunting and they’re also hard to skim read, using six lines or less works best – that’s lines, not sentences.Also, highlight key points when writing email marketing copy in bold and use visual aids like colour and images. You need make sure your message is immediately clear at a glance – after all, you only have a few initial seconds before your reader decides to discard your email.
Create a sense of urgency and provide the reader a reason why what you’re offering benefits them. Make sure these advantages stand out in your email’s copy, Internet users tend to have short attention spans, give them a compelling reason like a limited-time offer, free shipping or a competition to visit your site or buy your product.
Make taking action easy for the reader and don’t leave them wondering what to do next. Include clear links to direct them where to go, eg. "Contact us to find out more" or "Purchase now".Don’t overload your email with links, however, view the links in your email as a path; you want to avoid sending people on a tangent that doesn’t lead to your end goal. You also don’t want to make people scroll to find links.
Send versions to yourself or a friend, which version is more appealing? If your email marketing system has A/B testing, you can use this to refine your email by comparing subject lines, link placement, differing calls to action and content.And always proofread your emails after writing email marketing copy, it really helps to get a second set of eyes to go over the email and click on all the links, just to be sure.It isn't easy writing a good email, it takes a lot of practice and testing, but most of all, it requires time. However, if you keep these points in mind, you’ll be well on your way to increasing the effectiveness of your email and inspiring more action from your readers.
