In my humble opinion most people spend too much time fretting about the color and layout of their email template and way too little time focusing on the copy that makes up their email.
Here’s how we write email copy here and why it produces such good results.
These tips are so powerful, I”m reluctant to share them here but I could show you how to swing a 7-iron exactly like Tiger and it would take you some practice to get it right so here goes:
There are five components to making any email marketing copy work and they all have to work together. You can’t just do one of them and expect to hit it out of the park every time.
The Offer
Before you write one word of your email you have to be clear on your offer. What exactly are you trying to do? What do you want your reader to do? Why is this good for them?
Time spent here is important because you’ll need it to explore options. What we do is spend time exploring options with our clients so we know exactly what the best possible offer is.
It’s really hard to make a lame offer exciting.
It’s really easy to make an exciting offer sell.
The Subject Line
Nothing happens until someone opens your email. All the great copy in the world is lost if only 3% of your audience reads your message.
On the other hand if you trick people into reading your email still nothing is going to happen.
The best subject lines appeal to your readers self interest. They have a strong benefit in them. THEY ARE NOT BORING! They aren’t clever.
We sit down and write out 10 to 20 different subject lines for one email. We show them to someone and see what they think. One usually rises above the others.
The Body Copy
Then we lay out the copy. The single most important step here is to make it clear. Clarity trumps everything else.
If you have a simple offer then this step is easy. If your offer is complicated or a bit confusing, then your copy with be that way too.
We respect that our clients readers are busy. They don’t have time to figure it out.
Make it clear for them.
The Call to Action
It always amazes us when we receive emails from the various lists we follow and there isn’t a clear call to action.
Ok, I read your email, now what do you want me to do?
“Read more about how to save 22% on your next order” is a pretty good call to action. Better than “Click here” because it reminds you about the reason you should click.
And in case you’re wondering, don’t load up an email with too many places to click. Keep it simple.
The Landing Page
The final piece of the puzzle is a matching landing page. I say matching because one of the most common errors I see in email marketing is to do all of the above steps well and then send a reader to the home page on your website and rely on them to sort through your navigation to find the relevant, matching page.
We make sure the link in the email matches up to the landing page very clearly.
You can link to a product page, an event signup page, an offer page, a category page but just make sure that the page you direct your traffic to is exactly what your visitor is expecting.
So now you have it. Spend time on good copy or tinker with the layout.
