When it comes to your business, mastering email communication is integral to success. In terms of your marketing strategy, writing effective emails is essential to seeing results. If you aren’t well versed in the best practices of email marketing, or your email skills could use polishing, it’s worth taking the time to learn a few tips. Over 75% of consumers claim email as their top preferred source for receiving marketing communications. Here are some tips to help you write more effective emails.
Related: Email Marketing for Small Business Owners (free eBook)
The Contents of an Effective Email
Successful email marketing is not as simple as splashing some text into an email. When looking at emails from a marketing perspective, one must look at all features of an email, not just the main message. A good email is very much the sum of all its parts.
The bare bones content of an effective email includes:
- Email subject line
- Email body with a call-to-action
- Professional email signature
For maximum results, particularly when it comes to marketing emails, all of these parts must be carefully curated and prepared before sending. Learn and get to know them well, as each plays an important role in writing an effective email. If your email subject line fails to inspire, for example, it doesn’t matter what the rest of your email says, as your recipients will delete the email before even reading it. Or perhaps you’ve written a great email with a catchy subject line, and your target recipient is ready to take the plunge by purchasing one of your products.
If your email signature fails to include a link to your website and other relevant information, you may have just lost out on a potential customer. It’s key that you give each part its due.
1. The Email Subject Line
The average busy user receives over 100 emails per day, and most users, in pursuit of the elusive inbox zero, are eager to sort through them as quickly and efficiently as possible. That means the vast majority of emails, particularly ones advertising a product or service, are instantly trashed. If you want your email to withstand the daily cleaning, it is vital that you incorporate a catchy subject line. Your subject line is your email’s saving grace; without one, or without a good one, your email will be deleted, or worse, marked as spam.
Thankfully, marketers aware of this tendency have come up with email subject line best practices to help you know the ins and outs of writing an email subject line. While writing a good subject line is often the most difficult part of an email, it is well worth the effort. With practice, writing catchy and effective subject lines will become second nature to you.
How do you write an effective email subject line?
First, keep it short. Most people quickly scan subject lines to decide the worth of an email. Aim for 50 characters or fewer.
Secondly, tell, don’t sell. If your email sounds too much like an advertisement, your recipient will make a beeline for the trash can icon. Try to avoid words like “free” or “percent off” as these tend to trigger spam filters. Where possible, personalize the subject header. Using a person’s name, and especially their locality (ex. their city or neighborhood), within an email subject line is statistically proven to increase open rates.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to be bold. Use exclamation points, pop culture references, or quotes to craft a fun, loud message. The more unique your subject line, the more curiosity it will invoke and the more likely it will be opened. The best email subject lines are short, interesting, and to the point.
Additionally, an important thing to remember: don’t be scammy. People do not respond well to scam-like techniques. Worse, the use of certain unscrupulous methods may even get your company into legal trouble,
2. The Email Body with CTA
Your email body with a call to action (CTA) is the substance of a message and determines the effectiveness of email. There are no firm guidelines for writing the body of your email. In fact, the contents of your email will vary greatly depending on the goal of the email.
Here are some tips for writing effective emails:
Keep it short. People’s time is short these days and their patience even shorter. Weed the fluff out of your emails and make them as short as possible. You need only enough words to get your point across.
Break up your writing. Avoid long blocks of writing and neatly organize your email body by dividing into paragraphs, using bullet points, proper punctuation, and so on.
Include a call to action. Email blast and newsletters are created for a reason: to generate revenue. While it may be gratifying to know that people are reading your emails, it means nothing if it doesn’t inspire them to do something about it. If you are selling a product or service, include a call to action within the email, such as a free trial, a discount code, or something similar. For more information about calls to action, check out this post.
Use interesting images. Spice up your email with interesting images. Try to avoid using standard stock photos that are not only not compelling, but overused. You may even find yourself using the same picture as your competitor! Instead, opt for less common images or create your own custom graphics with free online image manipulators like Canva or PicMonkey.
3. Email Signature
A professional email signature can make emails more effective by providing the reader with useful information at the bottom of your email. Use an email signature at the bottom of your emails to identify yourself, your role at the business, and provide contact information including your social media accounts. Email signatures make your email more effective by providing a streamlined way for readers to get in touch with you.
Now that you’ve got the formula for writing effective emails, get to it! For more help with your email marketing, download our free eBook below:
