If you’re looking to start writing marketing emails that convert, you’re on the right track. Your writing ability can seriously affect your bottom line as an email marketer. However, don’t let this scare you.
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The good news is that you don’t need to be a grandmaster copywriter to pull some amazing benefits from email marketing. Remember that in email marketing applying some simple basics guarantees good results.
The same holds true when it comes to writing emails. While it is a noble goal if you want to become an expert email writer, even if you master the basics, you’ll do pretty well for yourself. Especially if you apply the other email marketing tips we talk about on our blog.
With that said, let’s look at some things you can start applying today.
Becoming an email writer
The main thing you have to realize is that email marketing primarily works through the act of delivering valuable content that the reader cares about.
It is definitely a bonus if you can deliver said value through more refined copy, but please realize that the act of delivering value is the primary thing here. That should be liberating if you’re just starting out, because it means there are less things to worry about.
If you also focus on other aspects of your email marketing, such as segmenting your lists so that you can send the right message to the right people, you have less to worry about when it comes to the writing aspect. A well segmented list doesn’t require a master copywriter to convert.
And when it comes to the writing itself, by just focusing on “delivering value” to a segment of readers, you’re going to do a great job as a writer, by default.
Being realistic about your output
One of the biggest problems that we see in email marketing is actually directly tied into issues surrounding writing the emails. What tends to happen is that new marketers adopt a philosophy of “writing when inspiration hits”.
Unfortunately, this results in a common issue. What you’ll find is that they will have a spurt where they send a bunch of emails to their list all at once, and then, they go missing for weeks, or even months.
Aside from annoying the subscribers, this can actually kill your deliverability, and hurt your reputation. It’s actually better to send 2 emails a month, consistently, than bombard users more frequently for a short time, and then go missing.
The solution is actually quite simple, and it’s to set modest goals when you’re new to this. For example, you might set a goal to write one new email sequence each month, and send out 1-2 broadcasts. If it ends up being easy to write at this volume of work, you can increase it. The point is that it all depends on you, and there is no wrong level to start at.
What should you write about?
If you ever get stuck for ideas, remember the discussion at the start of this section. The main focus in your writing is in delivering value to your readers. It’s not to be fun, witty, charming, cool or interesting (though it helps).
Your primary goal is to deliver things that have actual value. For example, if you sell a consulting service, share some of your best tips and secrets on the industry. I’m talking about things that you could easily sell for money if you packaged it as a book.
Now, you might be saying “But I’m not in the consulting business”. The good news is that whatever your industry, you always have great tips, advice and knowledge that solves problems. If you have a business, you’re solving problems, that’s what every business does.
Identify what information can help people solve their problems faster, and you will find a way to deliver value. Even if all you can do is just help them decide which of your products to choose and why. This is still a form of providing value, and a lot of people forget this.
Recycling and repurposing content
The odds are that you do produce content for other purposes, and much of that content can be turned into emails, or serve as inspiration when writing emails. For example if you have a blog where you generate leads for the email list, odds are that there is content that will either serve as inspiration, or source material.
Look through your archive of posts and see if any of these posts can’t be turned into value-giving emails. Likewise, if you have a presence on social media or YouTube, the content there can inspire you to write emails that solve or tackle the same pain points as said videos or posts.
But what if those posts and videos are just product updates? Well, that too can give you ideas about emails to write. Remember, keeping people up to date on your products and business is also valuable content, especially if they’re in the consideration stage. Remember that the original purpose of newsletters and email lists is to keep people up to date about you and your brand.
And on a similar note, if you are indeed producing content for other channels, promoting it to your email list is an easy way to get more emails in there. Writing an email where you’re promoting your latest YouTube video, killer blog post or a social media series is easier than you might think. And it’s just another great way to get that volume in.
Writing copy that converts
Copywriting is a skill and an art, and it takes years to fully master. That might sound like bad news, but remember, you don’t need to be a master copywriter to benefit tremendously from email marketing.
Your actual email copy is just one of many factors that influences how much benefit you gain from email marketing. The world’s best copywriter would get quite poor results if their list isn’t well segmented, and delivery is an afterthought.
With that said, it is useful to start thinking about how writing compelling content can help you convert even more. Notice that I said “convert even more”. This is because, again, if your content is valuable, it will convert even if you haven’t improved your copy yet. Think of good conversion copywriting as a multiplier.
The subject line matters, but it’s easy to get it horribly wrong
One of the major issues I see with new email writers is that they tend to go overly promotional or excited in their subject lines. Yes, the subject line should intrigue the user and get their attention. However, this shouldn’t be done at the expense of being annoying, or looking spammy.
Remember, a subject line that over promises will just result in disappointment once they open the email. They’re likely to unsubscribe or mark your email as spam. Likewise with a subject line which is too spammy and attention-begging.
So how do you get good at writing subject lines? Well, we have a guide on that, but the one thing I’m going to say is that it’s ok to start off “plain”. Study our guide on subject lines and start applying those tips so you can get better over time. It’s ok if your first attempts feel “unexciting”. It’s much better than ending up in the spam folder.
Forget selling, focus on helping your lead make a decision
While it might sound paradoxical, the best way to sell with your email copy, is to change your focus from “selling things” to “guiding leads down a journey”. And the point of this journey is to help them discover for themselves all the benefits your product can provide.
How do you do this? You frame your product as the solution to their pain points. Please remember that people are naturally resistant to anything that even remotely sounds like a sales pitch. Position yourself as a guide that helps them unlock the door to solving their problems.
Use clear and concise language to communicate that you understand their exact pain points, and frustrations. Then, highlight how your product solves those pain points and makes their lives easier. Focus on the benefits they will experience, not just the “spec sheet” or “features” of your product.
Also remember that storytelling and social proof are some of the easiest ways to achieve all of this. It makes your life as a writer easier if you simply have to parlay the stories from success stories and satisfied customers.
Now, there are multiple ways to do this. My favorite way is to subtly weave in references to success stories where it makes sense in the context of a given value-giving email.
The next way to utilize social proof is to place actual formal testimonials from raving fans when you do send the occasional special offer or promotional email.
And the third and final main way to do this is create downloadable case study PDFs that you can email to your list, when they reach the consideration stage.
Targeted messaging works, and it makes writing so much easier
Do you want to know the most difficult thing to pull off as a writer? It is talking to a general audience, without knowing anything about them, and still making them feel understood. A traditional master copywriter could write a magazine ad, and still make every reader feel like it speaks to them personally.
Here’s the good news: you’re not writing for newspapers or magazines. With modern email marketing segmentation, you can clearly define your target audience. That is to say, you can have a far more refined idea of exactly whom you’re talking to, and what they are interested in.
This makes it a lot easier to write copy that speaks to the reader. But again, make sure that you do your work in terms of email segmentation and defining the customer journey first.
And since we’re talking about email technology making your life easier, consider utilizing personalization features. At the very least you will want to utilize merge tags. This is where you use the person’s first name, or other bit of data in the subject line or in the body.
And if you want to get really cool and fancy, try our super popular smart personalization technology. This is where you can make sure that entire parts of the email are different and dynamically generated based on who’s reading it.
Get A Strategic Partner On Your Side
There’s no need to go at this alone. While we do put out a lot of free content to help you, nothing beats a one-on-one conversation. In these articles we try to help clarify things as best as possible. However, every business is different, so we have to generalize.
If you want to understand better how to implement email marketing in your specific business, let’s have a chat. At the moment I am still able to do some free demos, so be sure to book one while I can still do these.
I would love to hear about your specific needs, challenges and any confusion you might have about email marketing strategies, including email segmentation. And then, help you see how you can use Emercury to improve your bottom-line.
Alternatively, or in addition to booking a free demo, you can also grab a username for our forever-free-plan while we still have it. It’s probably the most generous email marketing automation plan on the planet. We include almost every feature in this plan, with very few restrictions.
Remember, you get to keep this plan for life, for free… Provided that you grab a username while registrations are still open. Note that we might decide to pull this way-too-generous offering at any point. So click that link to check if we still allow registrations.