Email copy – It’s not just words.

An email needs to stop you in your tracks. It needs to cut through the noise of our busy everyday lives, capture your attention and provide a compelling case to engage with the sender. The design and structure of the email certainly brings the visual. It identifies the brand, displays the emotional intent and directs the promotional message, yet the copy has equal influence. In fact, you could even say that the copy is more important. Before you see the design, all you get to see is one line of copy in the form of a subject line, enticing you to engage with what’s beyond!

Not only does a well written email entice you to click through from subject line to call-to-action (CTA), but it also ties the creative together. As resident Copywriter here at ActionRocket, with 15 years of marketing copywriting experience, I feel equipped to share a few of my top tips on how to write a winning email.

#Email Copy top tip 1: Know your audience.

Just like an author does when writing a book, always having the target audience in mind when writing the email is key. The target audience profile will determine the language used, the styling and tone of the writing and the amount of text that’s needed. Understanding who your audience are and determining how to talk to them will enable you to persuade them to click through to where you want them to go.

#Email Copy Top tip 2: Be personal and relevant.

The personalisation of email copy should not stop at the reader’s first name. Writing in the second person shows that you are focused on them and not yourself as a business and you are keen to offer solutions to what they may need.  

Relevant value-added content is the ultimate for email engagement. This doesn’t just mean sending a personalised message on their birthday but also crafting copy that’s tailored to them in every email you write.

#Email Copy Top tip 3: It's all about click-through – starting with the subject line.

As mentioned, the subject line copy is the most important part of the email. It’s the reason your recipients open it in the first place. It needs to do all jobs in one line; capture attention, encourage engagement, preview what’s in the email. All while keeping your audience in mind.

Based on the open rate performance of hundreds of millions of emails sent through Mailchimp, subject lines with less than 9 words tend to perform best and those with 5-7 words are the most common.

Supporting preheader text is the snippet of copy that appears after the email subject line in the recipient’s inbox view. It is bonus extra space to further encourage an open. It works best when the subject line is used to grab attention and the preheader backs it up with additional detail. A study by Litmus found that 24% of respondents will look at the preheader text before opening the email.

#Email Copy Top tip 4: Structure & readability.

For consistent click-through to happen from preview and beyond, as let’s face it this is the email’s main reason for being, the copy needs to have a themed continuity that provides unity between the subject-line, preheader, the body content and an actionable CTA.

As the majority of email readers scan, each section of copy should be in concise paragraphs that rather than focus on features, instead talk about benefits and/or pain points and how to overcome them.

Key offers within the body copy should be in bold for emphasis and bullets, if using them, should be limited to one line each. An actionable email is created through storytelling, urgency and relevancy that guides the reader to the CTA.

#Email Copy Top tip 5: Get expert support.

At ActionRocket, we can help with everything that is digital marketing and we know email particularly well. We can strategise, design and build dynamic campaigns for you, and of course, particularly vital considering what we’ve just learnt, we can provide you with winning copy too.