Email marketing has come a long way in recent years. But, even with the new features that enrich it, it is remarkable how a plain, well-written message works as well, or better, than a much more elaborate message, full of graphics and eye-catching alerts.
If the content is not well written, your subscribers will lose interest in your messages and start deleting them.
Here are 8 tips for writing a good message
1. Use active language
If in the subject lines of your messages, you use verbs such as "take", "download", "reserve", "order" or "buy", the reader will know exactly what he can or should do.
Direct language makes it clear to the recipient what they can do with the information in the email if they choose to open it. In other words, keep the value to the user in mind.
2. Prioritize clarity
Write a subject line that is, firstly, clear and, secondly, catchy. In marketing copy, clarity should always be your priority.
If, after writing a clear subject line, you can also make it catchy, funny, endearing, surprising, or whatever, go for it. But never sacrifice clarity for trying to be entertaining.
3. Make them relevant
In the text of the message, as in your subject line, you should strive to establish relevance through personalization.
Here it takes more than including the name for the text of the email to convince readers that what it contains is relevant to them. So take advantage of the beginning of the email to deliver relevant content. Let the reader know that you are dealing with their tastes and preferences, with their lifecycle, with their times.
4. Be brief
One of the worst mistakes copywriters make is trying to cram the whole story into one message.
The reader will most likely look for the important points to derive the overall message and decide whether to take action. Many people don't read, they just sweep through the messages to quickly find the most relevant.
Therefore, if you send an email with hundreds of words of text, you are hindering recipients from deciding whether they want to click, simply because they can't - or won't - quickly sift through so much information.
Instead, show in a compelling and summarized way what the reader will get and allow them to click on a link to your website for more information.
The key to writing a short email is to maintain focus. What is the objective of your email? A single main call to action results in a higher click-through rate than messages with multiple calls to action.
5. Use active calls to action
Emails should contain calls to action and should be very easy to identify. We said that people sweep your messages with their eyes. If there's one thing you want them to pick up on, it's your call to action.
If you send an email in HTML format, you can include a button. There are two qualities that make this call-to-action button effective:
First, it should not be hard to find. That means a prominent, eye-catching design.
Second, good copy is just as important. It should include succinct, clear, action-oriented language. Tell you in very few words, using verbs, what you can do.
6. Talk about benefits, not features
You certainly know the value of your message, but do your recipients? Not yet. And it's your job to explain it to them.
The problem is that many emails only explain the features of what they offer, not the benefit to be gained.
Features describe; benefits sell. Features are usually technical in nature and summarize what the product or service does. Benefits, on the other hand, paint a picture of success in the potential customer's mind, of how it will change his or her life in some way.
Both features and benefits are valuable information to offer potential customers during their buying process. But ultimately, most customers decide to buy because of the benefits. That said, if you find yourself in a competitive and highly saturated market, it's best to focus on the benefits of your product so that potential customers can weigh your competitive advantage.
7. Write in the second person
Writing in the second person means using pronouns and adjectives such as "you", "your" and "yours". This means that you orient the text towards the reader, not towards yourself.
Second person is a good language tactic that keeps the focus on the customer, not the brand. It's subtle and helps you stay value-oriented.
8. Finally, whenever possible, personalize your messages.
Well-targeted messages tend to yield higher performance rates - such as open and click-through rates - than emails that have not been personalized.
The more segmented your mailing list is, the more possibilities you have to personalize the subject line and offer relevant content to that email recipient.
So ask yourself, is there a way to further personalize your email subject line? And we don't just mean the dynamic field where you insert a person's [NAME]...; email recipients have long since stopped being impressed with that functionality.
