How to write an effective email

Email marketing has made great strides in the past few short years. However, with all the fancy new functionality brands are utilising, you know what’s quite odd? A well-written, plain-text email can do just as well (if not better) than a highly designed email with tonnes of bells and whistles.

In fact, no matter how fancy your digital marketing emails appear, if these are devoid of well-written content, your subscribers will stop opening — and start deleting — your messages. So before you start writing, decide on your desired outcome.

A formula for writing emails

When putting emails together, it’s helpful to work backwards. Begin by defining the action you would like your recipient to perform after they have received your email. After this, craft your content with that end goal in mind.

For example, do you want to set a call so that you can:

• Close a sale?
• Donate to a cause for your fundraiser?
• Sign up to your monthly newsletter?

No matter what your goals is, write it down. After this make sure that call-to-action (CTA) is front and centre in your email. Cut the fluff, stay relevant, see results.

Brand voice

Whether you are writing content for direct mail, email, blog posts, or any other type of marketing material, you must ask yourself the following questions:

• Does my content sound human?
• Is it something a person would want to read?

You must remember to write for humans, first and foremost. In order to catch your audience’s attention, you cannot have copy that sounds like a spec sheet. Effective content for digital marketing must sound human and speak to real needs, priorities, and challenges.

Stylistic tips for the perfect email

When it comes to designing a marketing email, don’t engulf a reader with long paragraphs in addition to lots of copy. Putting together an email design that breaks up your email-marketing copy – with punchy sub-heads, numbered and bulleted lists in addition to small bits of information – will permit subscribers to quickly read it as well as grasp your main message.

And when appropriate, make use of images to help tell your story as well as support your digital marketing message. (As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.)

Making your email messaging scannable is especially important for your subscribers who open and read their emails on mobile devices.

As we’ve said previously in this article, when putting your email copy together it is vitally important to think about the end goals you wish to achieve in the email. What actions do you want the users to take? Think about the following before pressing “send”:

• Personalised email – The actual email copy is the outcome. You want the receiver to get something out of it. Either a compliment or information. Therefore, no reply is necessary.
• Inquiry emails – You need some kind of an answer from the recipient. Either advice, poll information. Questions are therefore asked in an email. A reply from your recipient is the outcome you want.
• Action emails – The goal is conveyed with strong CTA within the body of the email. It is either a sales pitch or perhaps a link replay.

Writing email copy for a persona

One of the top ways to create content as well as plan promotional campaigns which really engage your target audience is by developing a buyer persona:

• In a nutshell, a buyer persona is the profile that embodies your ideal customer.

By putting together your own buyer personas, you’ll have the ability to tailor your digital marketing efforts as well as connect with your target audience in order to meet their needs in addition to solving their problems.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Keen to learn more about the art and science of digital marketing and how to leverage the power of this for your business? If so, then you should really do a digital marketing course such as the one that we offer. Read more here.