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Email Copywriting 101

Introduction ...... 3

The 3 Biggest Mistakes ...... 4

Mistake 1: Not Knowing Your Goal ...... 4

Mistake 2: Neglecting the Audience ...... 5

Mistake 3: Ignoring Any of the 3 Parts of Your Email ...... 7

Master the 3 Parts of the Email ...... 8

The Body Copy ...... 8

The Subject Line ...... 10

The Call to Action ...... 12

Conclusion ...... 14

INTRODUCTION

Everyone’s out there using email to try and market their goods and services, but very few of them are succeeding. Why? Because email is easy to do but it’s very hard to do well. According to the Direct Marketing Association and Demand Metric, email has a median return on investment (ROI) of 122%. That’s more than four times higher than other marketing channels, including social media, direct mail and paid search. And according to Mailigen, 89% of marketers say email is their primary channel for lead generation.* But many if not most of those emails are poorly written, salesy and annoying. They’re generating irritation—not intrigue—and sighs—not sales. Sadly, many marketing emails generate more spam complaints and deletes than dollars. Yes, email is still the most profitable form of marketing, but only when it’s done right. And it’s even more profitable when your emails are well written—and when you avoid three common mistakes. I worked as a freelance copywriter for 20 years, writing hundreds of marketing emails for clients, and email has changed a lot in that time. (We didn’t used to get emails on our phones, remember?) Yet in all that time, despite the technological advances, I’ve seen people repeat the same mistakes again and again when they write marketing emails. I could look at my inbox right now and find a shoddy example, and I’m sure you could too. Don’t do that. Don’t be the one sending the mediocre, the mundane, the flat-out annoying sales emails. Learn to better. This ebook will help. In this ebook, we’ll talk about how to avoid the three biggest mistakes in email copywriting, and how to write better emails so you can sell more stuff—and stand out from all the crap. Let’s get started…

Note: This ebook is also the workbook for the online class Email Copywriting 101. You can find (and take) the class at BetterFasterWriter.com/online-classes/

*https://emailmonks.com/blog/email-marketing/email-marketing-statistics/

THE 3 BIGGEST MISTAKES

As I said in the introduction, I’ve seen people making the same mistakes with email marketing for two decades now. The mistakes are many, but the three biggest mistakes I see in email copywriting are: 1. Not knowing the goal or job of an email 2. Neglecting the audience, not writing to them or their needs 3. Not giving enough attention to all three parts of an email I see these mistakes all of the time! And these aren’t mistakes made by amateurs, but by big brands and marketers who should know better too. Let’s make sure you don’t make these mistakes so your email marketing will be better than average.

MISTAKE 1: NOT KNOWING YOUR GOAL

One of the biggest mistakes I see is not being clear on your email’s job. You have to start with the end in mind. Ask yourself, “What do I want this email to do?” Drive people to your website? Get them to register for an event? Click to learn more? Get to know your business better? Be clear on the end result you want and work backward from there to write your email. Some possible goals might be getting the recipient to:

• Click on a link • Learn about your business • Register for an event • Buy something • Call you • Forward your message • Download something • Fill out a form For example, if I’m writing an email to promote the online email copywriting class that goes with this ebook and I’m sending the email to a list that doesn’t know me well or doesn’t know the value of my online classes, my goal would be to get people to learn more rather than get them to sign up, because they haven’t heard of me before. On the other hand, if I’m sending the email to an existing customer base that has taken online classes from me before, my goal would be to get people to take the class.

YOUR TURN Think about a marketing email you’ve sent or one you’re planning to do. What was/is your goal with that email? Be specific:

Avoid the first mistake: Be clear about your goal.

MISTAKE 2: NEGLECTING THE AUDIENCE

Neglecting the audience is another big mistake I see people making time and again. Marketers tend to focus on what they want to sell, not on what the consumer wants to buy. That leads to ineffective emails. You have to know your audience. You have to know who you are writing to and why they should care. It’s not about what you’re selling. It’s about what they are buying. You have to know what problem they want to solve, the pains they’re experiencing that you can help them alleviate. Get to know your audience before you start writing an email. Ask yourself questions like:

• Who are you writing to? • Why should they care? • What is their pain? What problem are they trying to solve? • Is the patient aware even of the disease? Do they know they have a problem? • How well do they know you, your solution, your industry?

Use your answers to these questions so figure out your audience then keep the answers top of mind as you craft your email. In addition, every email you write should answer the “What’s in it for me?” question. Also keep that in mind while you’re writing and make sure you’re clearly answering that question for the recipient. You also have to know how well the audience knows you and/or your industry. Ask yourself, is the patient even aware of the disease? If not, you have to take an indirect approach in your email marketing, first describing the problem to make them aware of it. Because if you’re talking about the disease and they don’t even know they’re ill, your email won’t communicate anything at all. I like to use the example of a home security system. To market that product, we might say our target audience is anyone who owns a house. But that doesn’t mean they realize they need a home security system. Therefore we can’t send an email trying to sell them a home security system. We have to start with something else to raise their awareness, like statistics around burglaries and how many homes are broken into each day. That would

make the patient aware of the disease—and, in this case, the need for a home security system. As another example, if I were writing an email to promote the email copywriting class that goes along with this ebook, I would want to know if the audience knew their emails were poorly written, whether or not they know who I am and what I can teach them, and whether or not they know the value of learning about the topic through online classes.

YOUR TURN Answer the questions about your audience as completely as you can:

Avoid the second mistake: Know your audience and their needs.

MISTAKE 3: IGNORING ANY OF THE 3 PARTS OF YOUR EMAIL

Ignoring any one of the three critical parts of the email is the third mistake I regularly see. Every marketing email has three parts you must pay attention to: the subject line, the body, and the call to action.

All three have to be good because each one leads to the next. Your subject line has to get people to open your email so they will read the body. The body has to get people to click on your call to action. Your call to action has to be compelling to drive action. You must give full attention to all three parts in order to have an effective marketing email. Neglect the subject line and people won’t open your email or, worse yet, your email will go into their junk folder. Neglect the body copy and people will click delete or even report your email as spam. Neglect the call to action and people won’t do anything. Looking at those three parts and knowing people see the subject line before the body copy, you might think you should write the subject line first. In my opinion, however, when you are writing an email, you start with the body copy and then write the subject line and call to action after, because it’s the body copy that will determine what the subject line and call to action say. You can start with the subject line. It might jumpstart the rest of the email as you start writing. But then go back and revisit it after you’ve written the body copy and call to action to make sure your original subject line still works. And if it doesn’t? Make it better.

YOUR TURN What are the three parts of each marketing email? 1. 2. 3.

And how important is each?

Avoid the third mistake: Pay attention to all three parts of the email.

MASTER THE 3 PARTS OF THE EMAIL

Now that we know one of the biggest mistakes in email marketing messages is neglecting one or more parts of that message, let’s go over ways to improve in all three areas: the body copy, subject line and call to action.

THE BODY COPY

When you write your email message, you start with the body because that is the heart of the email, the core message. Your subject line and your call to action will derive from your body copy—although, as we said above, sometimes starting with the subject line helps you get started on the body copy. Although this is just a short ebook on email copywriting, and there’s obviously much more to copywriting than we can cover in such a short time, here are 10 tips for writing better email copy that anyone can put to use: 1. Make sure you’re speaking to the customer’s needs and not your own. Remember your answers to questions about your audience and their pain points? You must address their pain points from their point of view. 2. Be concise. Email is not the place to be wordy and long-winded. Stick to the point and try to tighten up your text. (Hint: You can learn to do that with other BetterFasterWriter.com classes!) 3. Be specific and avoid generalities. Use specific numbers, words, dates and prices and avoid vague words like “great.” 4. Have one point that you’re making, two if you have to, and absolutely no more than three. Otherwise you risk writing a longer email that has the potential to confuse. 5. Remember to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question. 6. Be real and authentic. Don’t try to sound like someone else. 7. Use bulleted or numbered lists and short paragraphs for white space and to make it easy on the eyes (and easy to scan). 8. Use subheadings for that same reason, if appropriate. Even a short email can have a subheading. And a subheading can be text that pops and stands out. 9. Use the “you” pronoun, more than you use “we” or “I.” 10. Proofread everything! We’ll talk more about that in a minute. In addition to the 10 tips above, there are two questions to consider before you start writing: One, how should it start and two, how long should it be? First off, how should your email start? That depends. Sometimes it’s appropriate to start an email with Dear Name, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you can use a heading and bold type so it looks more like a marketing email. Sometimes you’ll want to come across as more personal so it doesn’t sound like a marketing email. Sometimes you jump right

in with an offer. It depends on a lot of variables. Also be wary of what I call the “warm up” paragraph. Should you have one? If you have some words at the beginning like “I am writing to…” try the email without that warmup paragraph and see if your message is stronger without it. We might call it a warm-up paragraph because it’s meant to “warm up” our reader so they want to read our email. But being direct and getting to the point might work better. We can also call it a warm-up paragraph because we are “warming up” when we write it. It’s okay to write a warm-up paragraph in your draft. It will help you get started. But consider deleting it when you revise your body copy. How do you recognize a warm-up paragraph? You can usually recognize it because it starts with “I” as in:

• I’m writing to… • I thought you might be… • I noticed that you… Other paragraphs or email introductions can also be the clutter of a warm-up even if they don’t start with “I,” and they should be deleted. Secondly, the other thing to keep in mind is the length of your email. You might be asking, “Sharon, how long or short should it be?” The answer (again) is, it depends. It will depend on what you’re selling, whom you’re selling to, and how well they know you. When in doubt, strive for shorter emails at first until you start to learn what works, especially if your audience is more likely to open your emails on a smart phone with a small screen. Then you can test longer emails later and compare their performance with the shorter ones.

YOUR TURN How should a marketing email start out?

How long should a marketing email be?

Now let’s go back a minute to our 10 tips for writing better email copy. Remember when tip 10 above said “Proofread”? Let’s talk about that in more detail. Proofreading might sound like some kind of formal procedure, but it’s not. And it’s imperative that you proofread your email and your subject line and your call to action before you send your email. You’ll not only look stupid if you have a mistake in your email, but you might send out the wrong information such as an incorrect price or date or even phone

number or website address. Just proofread, okay? For tips on proofreading your emails, and any other marketing materials, go to www.betterfasterwriter.com/proofread. Now let’s make those 10 tips real. Here’s an example of the body of an email I might write to market my online email copywriting class:

Are you using email to market your business? Then you need to take the class Email Copywriting 101. Although email is the most profitable form of marketing, many emails are poorly written which means they’re not as profitable as they could be. Make sure your email messages rise above, get noticed and get results. In this fast-paced 25-minute class you’ll learn:

• The three biggest mistakes people make in email copywriting • How to write better emails that drive more sales This class is for anyone who uses email to market products or services, including marketers, freelancers, sales people and small business owners. It will improve your writing and your results. Learn more!

Let’s see how well I did with the 10 tips we just went over: 1. I’m speaking to the customer’s need: using email for marketing. 2. It’s concise: it goes straight into talking about the class (no warm up). 3. It’s specific, saying it’s 25 minutes long, and what they’ll learn. 4. It makes just one point: they will write better emails if they take the class. 5. It answers the “what’s in it for me” question. 6. It sounds authentic: this is really me talking. 7. It uses a bulleted list. 8. It’s too short for subheadings so I didn’t need them or use them. 9. It uses “you.” 10. I proofread it so it is free of errors. The next time you write an email to market your business or product, use these 10 tips and check your body copy against them. If you see room to improve, act on it!

YOUR TURN Start paying attention to the emails that show up in your own inbox and learn from them. Which subject lines got you to open? Which emails got you to click? How would you rate the writing, conciseness and calls to action?

THE SUBJECT LINE

After you’ve written the body copy, it’s time to tackle the subject line.

Even though you write the body first, the subject line will be seen first, so it’s very important. It will help you get past spam filters, and it will help you get your email opened. What’s the first thing you look at when you get an email? Probably the From name, if you’re like most people: 64% open an email based on the From name, according to research by Email Monks.* Then 47% open an email based on the subject line. (And it you think the subject line isn’t important, note that this research found 68% of people report email as spam based solely on the subject line!) You want people to open your email. So spend time on that subject line. I can’t stress this enough. People often write the subject line last with very little thought or effort and that’s a huge mistake. If people don’t open your email, it doesn’t matter how good the body copy is! No one will see it! It might as well not exist! So invest time in the subject line and get your email opened. Think about the context in which they see your subject line: in a very crowded inbox. And they are triaging their inboxes and deciding what to open and what to trash in large part based on the subject lines they see. As with writing the body copy, this is just a short ebook so it’s not like we can dive deep into copywriting this important part of your emails, but here are 3 ways to write better subject lines: 1. Be specific so people know what is in the email. Make a promise and then follow through on it in your email. Don’t make a generic promise such as, “You’ll like this,” but a specific one like “Red sweaters are on sale.” 2. Be truthful. No trickery! Make sure the promise of your subject line is fulfilled by your email. Otherwise you’ll get the opens but you won’t get the click throughs and you will piss people off. Tricking people into opening your email will only work against you in the long run. I once received an email with the subject line “Are you mad at me?” and I had a horrible feeling that I’d forgotten a meeting or deadline. It turned out to be a marketing email and trust me, I will never buy from that company! Their trick pissed me off for good. 3. Watch out for things that trigger spam filters or that will land your email in the junk folder, things like using all capital letters or lots of explanation points. There is no set formula for a successful subject line. For some businesses, a sense of urgency might work and for others it won’t. For some, a longer subject line works and for others it doesn’t. Even the word “discount” might work better or worse than the word “sale.” Some brands are using emojis in their subject lines with good results. Sometimes a specific date or number gets more opens…and so on. You will have to learn what works best for your audience. To learn the best kinds of subject lines for your business, try out different ones to see what works with your audience. You can do some basic testing to help you learn what works for you and your business. Testing might sound hard or technical, but it’s easy to do an A/B split test. Even if your

list only has 200 email addresses on it, you could send a test email to 10 people. Here’s how you do it: Write two different subject lines and label one A and the other B. Send five of the names on your list the email with subject line A and five of them the email with subject line B. See which one performs better then send that one to the rest of your list. Try to get into the habit of doing this with every email you send. Yes, it will take you a little longer to test each time, but in the long run it will be worth it as you get more opens because you’ll constantly be tweaking each time you learn a little more about how to improve. If I were to write a subject line to go with the example email we looked at above, I might test these two to see which one works better:

• Write better emails and sell more stuff • Is your email marketing the best it can be?

Then I’d use the better performing subject line to send the email to the rest of my list. It’s that easy.

YOUR TURN Take a look at these real-life subject lines from my own inbox. Which ones do you think performed better and why?

• You’re Invited • Your truck is due for an oil change • Three Signs of a Lazy Writer • Possible call on Wednesday?

*https://emailmonks.com/blog/email-marketing/email-marketing-statistics/

THE CALL TO ACTION

Now to the last part of your email: the call to action. The goal of your email is to get the recipient to do something, right? So you want to write something that compels action...that’s why it’s called a call to action, not inaction. Let’s talk about two considerations to help you write a good call to action. First of all, consider the audience and take into account the risk factor. Do you remember early on when we talked about knowing your goal and I used my own email marketing as an illustration? I used the example of a “learn more” call to action vs. a “buy now” one because I’d be emailing an audience that wasn’t primed to buy. Knowing your audience and where they might in the sales funnel is really important when figuring out your call to action. You have to know how much risk they are willing to take. Secondly, to write better calls to action, be specific. Think beyond “click here.” Being

specific usually makes your writing in general stronger and especially your call to action. Some possible calls to action are:

• Learn more • Buy now • Register today

And when you get more specific, your calls to action might look more like these examples:

• Download the report • See more sweaters • Read more • Start my free trial Whatever it is, make your call to action obvious and clear! Don’t make a wishy washy ask. Don’t bury it. For the example we’ve been using to market my online email copywriting class, my call to action would depend on my audience like we’ve already discussed. For example:

• Register Now would work for anyone who already knew me and trusted me to provide a useful class. • Learn More would be better for anyone who doesn’t know me because it’s a lower risk call to action. • Or I could offer a glimpse of the agenda and my call to action might be See What You’ll Learn. And just as you can test your subject lines to see which ones perform better, you can test your calls to action in the same way. You could even test with your whole list, rather than a portion of it like we talked about before. So if you have 200 people on your list or 200,000, you could use one call to action for half and another call to action for the other half and see which one outperforms the other.

YOUR TURN What are some possible calls to action you could try?

CONCLUSION

That’s a wrap! But before we part ways, let’s do a quick review… The next time you sit down to start on a marketing email, remember to make sure you’re clear on your goal and your audience. Keep the body copy concise and specific, invest time on your subject line, and make sure your call to action is obvious and appropriate. And test whatever you can. And then? And then look at your results! Every time you send an email, take note of what worked or didn’t work so you can use that information to refine and improve the next email. And write better emails for better results.

About the author, Sharon Ernst

Sharon spent 20 years working as a freelance copywriter. Realizing people struggled to write well whether they worked in marketing or not, she started BetterFasterWriter.com to help people learn effective writing skills–and be better, faster writers.

She takes her two decades of experience in writing compelling, persuasive copy and applies those techniques to marketing and to everyday business writing, so people learn to not only write better and faster, but more persuasively too.

Good writers are made, not born. Go to BetterFasterWriter.com and find online videos, ebooks, workshops, blog posts and more to help you improve.