Want to write a compelling and professional email? We have the top 10 email writing tips to improve your email structure and boost conversion rates.
Effective email writing is essential for any copywriter and business owner to learn. Proficient email writers are always in high demand as many companies understand how valuable effective email marketing can be for customer engagement and growth. Implement these tips to improve your email writing skills.
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1. Know Your Target Audience
The more you know your ideal customer, the stronger your email results. Unfortunately, many emails sound generic because they haven’t nailed down their target customer profile. By defining your target audience and creating customer profiles, you can target specific groups and boost your conversion rate.
Is your email a B2B email or a B2C email? Is it going to a warm audience or a cold audience? Are they single in their 20s or career people with families in their 40s? Narrow down your customer avatar to understand what they’re going through and their pain points.
2. Write An Eye-Catching Subject Heading
Probably the most essential part of your email is your subject line. You can write the perfect email, but without a good subject line, it might not even be opened by the recipient.
First, you must ensure your subject line will avoid the dreaded spam folder. It’s even more challenging these days as email providers now have promotions or other folders to which most marketing emails are being sent. Avoid spam marketing terms such as free, sale, and discount, which raise red flags to email providers indicating you should be sent to one of these dreaded folders.
Second, make sure that your subject line needs to stand out. The recipient is bombarded with marketing emails; if yours doesn’t stand out, they likely won’t open it. Use a snappy and engaging title to grab their attention.
Also, make sure your subject line is short enough that it fully shows up in the subject line. Every email provider is different, but if you keep it under 60 characters, you should be safe.
3. Use Preview Text
A helpful tool many copywriters don’t take advantage of is the preview text. This is a way to expand your subject line and improve the chances of getting your email opened. You have a limited amount of characters for your subject line, but you can expand on it with your preview text.
If you don’t enter anything in this field by default, your preview text will be the beginning of your email. This is wasted real estate if you use the default. Your reader doesn’t need to read the same intro twice.
4. Craft A Strong Introductory Sentence
The goal of your subject line is to get the recipient to open your email. Now, you need to grab their attention with an engaging introductory sentence. Using a greeting is fine, but depending on the type of email you’re writing, you may not need one.
Whether you start with something like Hello (name) or not, the following sentence needs to be strong enough to get their attention. Sometimes you won’t have your final first sentence till you do your editing. So read your email and ask if your first sentence is stronger than the following one. If it isn’t, then replace it with a more substantial sentence.
“Let’s say your email starts like this:
As you get older, it’s harder to lose weight.
Your metabolism slows down, and it’s easier for your body to pack those unwanted pounds.
Diet and exercise alone don’t work.”
The third sentence is much stronger than the first sentence. This is because everyone already knows the first sentence, and the third one is a bold statement. Switch out your original sentence for a variation of the third:
“As you get older, metabolism slows down, and it’s easier for your body to pack those unwanted pounds.”
Read through your email and pick out the strongest, most engaging sentences and rework them to use as your introductory sentence.
5. Get To The Point
People are busy, and your reader might not be sitting in their office on their computer reading their emails. Instead, they could be on their phone while having lunch, on the bus, or walking from point A to point B. They can get distracted and stop reading your email if you don’t get to your point quickly.
Now, if you’re sending to a warm list and there’s a strong rapport with your list, you can sometimes get by starting your email with a story. Story emails are powerful, and the point isn’t usually made till the end or after the story. But I would advise avoiding this if you haven’t yet built a strong rapport with your audience.
6. Ensure Your Email Is Readable
The formatting of an email is essential. If your structure is complicated and includes large blocks of text, the reader will likely turn off. You want to avoid anything that gives your reader a reason to stop reading.
Keep your sentences short. Try to avoid paragraphs. Emails where the sentence starts as a new line is getting more acceptable. It’s easier to read emails when it’s just a collection of clear lines of text instead of big paragraphs.
7. Avoid Selling In The Email
A common mistake copywriters make is trying to “sell” their product or service in their email. It’s tough to sell anything in an email. Many writers don’t even realize they’re selling in their emails.
A simple test will be to see if you’re discussing features or benefits in your email. If you’re talking about features you’re selling, take out all those features and discuss the benefits instead. How will they benefit from whatever your product or service is?
Emails aren’t meant for selling. Emails are meant for your audience to take the next step in your sales cycle. Maybe the next step is viewing a webinar, setting up an appointment, or leading them to a sales page.
8. Write a Strong CTA
Every email you write should have a CTA (Call to Action). You must understand what you want the audience to do and close them to take the necessary action.
You need to sell them on taking the next course of action. Make it obvious what the next course of action is: reply to the email, call you, or click a link.
You only want one type of CTA. Multiple CTA’s will only confuse the reader. So keep it concise and simple.
Here are some examples of effective CTAs:
“Click here to see how (example product) can help you with (example solution). “
“Book your appointment today at my Calendly link here.”
“Learn more about (insert company name) by checking out our site here (insert link).”
These CTA’s all have a direct and easy order. It makes it obvious what the next course of action should be.
To learn more, check out our copywriting formula for success!
9. Be Clear and Concise
People don’t have a lot of time to read your emails. Therefore, you need to keep it as short as possible. When reading each sentence, always ask yourself if this sentence is needed. If not, take it out. Also, try to shorten long sentences by removing unnecessary words.
You can use a site like Hemmingway to see what things you can remove as it tracks things such as adverbs and what sentences are hard to read. Most adverbs are unnecessary. Usually, the sentences that are hard to read are too long and can be fixed by shortening them.
10. Proofread Your Email
Proofread your email and make sure it reads easily and engages the reader. You want to keep your email in a conversational tone. The best way to do this is to read the email aloud when you finish.
When you read anything in your mind, your mind often goes to autopilot and auto-fills anything that’s missing. So you’ll find it easier to spot any mistakes when you read it out loud. And it will ensure that your email stays in a conversational tone. We recommend adding Grammarly to email software.
Check out our guide to the best email writing software.
