15 Quick Tips for Creating Email Copy that Converts
15 Quick Tips for Creating Email Copy That Converts
When it comes to creating email copy, what can you do to drive more opens, clicks, and sales? Here’s a checklist of 15 email copywriting best practices. See how many you’re already using to develop your email-marketing campaigns.
- Determine your unique value proposition. What sets your product/services apart from your competitors? Answering this question is one of the first and most important steps in coming up with an effective strategy for the content of your email campaigns.
- Know your audience. What are the personal attributes, challenges, and goals of your prospects and customers? What motivates them to purchase your products? Develop personas for your target audience to best answer these questions and create relevant content for your email campaigns.
- Always provide value. Whether it’s the latest industry news, discount coupons, exclusive sales deals, or relevant educational information, make sure the content of your emails consistently provides benefit and value to your subscribers.
- Spend time crafting and testing your subject lines. Your subscribers won’t even get to your email message unless you motivate them to first open your email. Find some great advice on how to write effective email subject lines in the following articles:
- Align your subject lines with email headlines and copy. You may come up with a cute and creative subject line that compels subscribers to open your email. But if the subject line isn’t relevant to your email content, subscribers may feel that you duped them, which can hurt your email performance in the long run.
- Be succinct. People are bombarded by so much information today — especially through email and social media — that they don’t have time to read long, detailed product descriptions. The trick is to hook subscribers with just enough information to pique their interest and drive them to click through to your website landing page to learn more.
- Make your emails scannable. In addition to being succinct, be sure your subscribers can quickly find the key information in your emails by using such techniques as descriptive headlines and subheads, bullets, and short paragraphs, as well as bold typeface to emphasize keywords, product benefits, and special offers.
- Have a single goal and one primary call to action. This is an important way to help ensure that your emails quickly and clearly convey your main message.
- Make your calls to action prominent and actionable. Keep in mind that your calls to action are the entrance to your sales funnel. So, it’s imperative that they are easy to find, as well feature copy that motivates a click. Check out this article for eight best practices to help you design powerful calls to action that convert.
- Personalize your emails. Email that have been personalized get six-times-higher transaction rates. In addition to using subscribers’ names, personalize your email content by segmenting your list and sending emails that target subscribers’ individual needs and interests. Click here for more information about ways to personalize your email content.
- Keep the copy user-centric. Be sure the word “you” shows up in your copy much more than “I,” “we,” “us,” and “me.” Keep in mind that your subscribers are interested in how your products/services can meet their needs — not about you and your company. Plus, email copy is much more engaging when subscribers are addressed as “you.”
- Make it mobile friendly. If you’re not optimizing your email copy and design for a mobile audience, you’re likely missing out on a significant amount of conversions. Check out this article for 10 copywriting tips specifically for converting your mobile subscribers.
- Create a sense of urgency. Time-sensitive promotions and specific deadlines will both capture attention and help drive immediate action.
- Talk with your subscribers, not at them. Use a conversational tone in your email copy to better engage with your subscribers. Find five tips for writing conversational emails here.
- Be CAN-SPAM compliant. This is essential for ensuring that your campaigns actually get delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes and don’t land in spam folders. The following article links tell you what you need to know about the CAN-SPAM Act and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL):
Need some help in creating email copy that drives peak campaign performance? Contact the email-marketing experts at FulcrumTech, and we’ll work with you to develop and implement a campaign strategy that consistently converts.