Email marketing is an excellent addition to your marketing arsenal. It is a low-cost option that allows brand owners to successfully communicate their core message with current and prospective customers. 

However, crafting engaging copy for email is an overwhelming task. Often, you put in effort to create compelling content but your subscribers fail to take the intended action. In fact, if your email doesn’t meet your subscribers’ expectations, they’re more likely to delete it or unsubscribe.

However, email copywriting isn’t as challenging if you know what works with your audience. Let’s take a look at some effective email copywriting tips that’ll quickly enhance your open rates and conversions. 

Nail it With the Subject Line

The subject line is the most important component of the entire mail. A catchy subject line can be the difference between recipients opening the email, deleting it, or even worse – reporting it as spam. Unfortunately, 69% of people will mark an email as spam based on the subject line alone. 

This means you should spend time perfecting the subject line of your email. Generally, people will open an email if they think it benefits them in some way. They will also react if they fear that they will miss out on a good deal or offer. 

So, when writing the subject line, incorporate urgency or curiosity. You can also intrigue the recipients by mentioning a special deal or discount.

Examples of Intriguing Subject Lines

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Don’t Neglect the Preview Text

An email’s preview text appears as a snippet below or next to the subject line and gives the recipients a teaser of what the email contains. Often, the preview text is extracted from the first line of the email. This is great since most writers craft the introduction carefully.

However, if you’re writing new preview text, make sure it aligns with the promise you made in your subject line. The short snippet should give subscribers a solid idea what to expect in your email and intrigue them to click.

Be Personal

Did you know that emails with a personalized subject line can lead to an average of 50% higher open rate? People like personalized emails. So, instead of writing for hundreds or thousands of subscribers, pretend you’re writing the email to a single person. Keep it friendly and conversational. 

One of the best ways to personalize an email is to use the recipient’s first name in the introduction. You can also create a customized email by including the following information about the receiver:

• Birthday
• Interests
• Browsing history
• Purchase history
• And relationship status 

Keep Things Short and Scannable

If you plan to write several hundred words in your email, you’re probably making a BIG mistake. No one likes to read long paragraphs of text, especially now that most emails are read on the tiny screens of smartphones. 

As a general rule of thumb, keep your email to a maximum of 20 lines or 200 words. Rather than beating around the bush, get right to the point. It’s also a good idea to break up your text using lots of space as huge blocks of paragraphs can turn off the reader very quickly. You can also add bulleted lists, short paragraphs, and questions to get your point across. Monitor email marketing metrics regularly to keep track of what’s working and what isn’t.

Make it Attractive

Gone are the days when email newsletters had to look like, well, a newsletter. Now, marketers are striving to make emails as engaging as possible to enhance conversion. 

One of the best ways to make an email interesting is to add pictures. With 65% of the population classified as visual learners, adding an image or two is vital to grab and retain the audience’s attention. 

Relevant photography in all forms works well in email. Either take custom photographs or buy affordable stock photos to add visual components your email. Be sure to edit the image so it aligns with your message.

Here is an example where MarketingProfs used an image of a smart phone in Dark Mode in one of their emails. You can also include videos in your emails to boost the engagement. In fact, studies suggest adding videos to your email can increase click rate by 300%.

However, regardless of what medium you choose to add in your email, make sure it’s optimized for mobile. 80% of emails are deleted  if they’re not accessible through a smartphone. 

Segment Your Emails

If you find out about a new club in town, would you call everyone in your contacts and tell them about it? Probably not! You’d only contact the people who would care about going to the specific club. 

Use a similar strategy in your email marketing. Instead of sending the same, repetitive emails to all your subscribers, segment them based on their age, the time they have signed up, shopping habits, and other trends to create a relevant persona. 

Spend some time getting to know your readers. You’ll find writing copy much easier as you will be more aware of the audience’s needs. 

Include a Strong Call to Action

Apart from the subject line, the call-to-action or the CTA is the most important part of your email marketing strategy. A CTA will get your readers to take the desired action and most probably convert.

When adding a call-to-action, make sure it is clear, starts with a verb, and lures the readers into taking the intended action. While you may be tempted to fill in your email copy with multiple CTAs, it can be more effective to just add one. If you give the readers a lot of places to click, they may get wary and not click any of them. 

Wrapping it Up

The key to a conversion-friendly email content is to understand your audience and give them what they want. When you keep the end goal in mind, you’ll have no trouble crafting engaging email copy. Good luck!