It’s more than just putting words together, there are certain email marketing tips that can help you improve email marketing copywriting skills.

Here are some Jones the Writer approved tips to improve email marketing copywriting skills:

Cultivate a mindset of curiosity.

Successful email marketers keep their eyes open for opportunities to learn new effective email marketing tactics from blogs, forums and websites. They do not hesitate to confront challenges such as consumer complaints or negative feedback but instead they look for ways to turn these into learning experiences. Whenever possible, they take time to study how other businesses succeed in email campaigns so they can be inspired by them and achieve similar or better results. When it comes to email marketing copywriting, curiosity helps marketers find new email marketing ideas and continuously improve email campaigns.

Take some time to reflect at the end of each day.

Instead of rushing through email management as soon as they wake up in the morning, successful email marketers take a moment to step back from their inbox and consider the previous email campaigns. They think about what went well and what didn’t. They look for strategies that can be improved or replaced with something better in future email campaigns. Reflecting on the previous campaign also allows them to assess how well their email marketing tactics are working so they can get an idea if there is room for improvement or not. It also gives them a chance to revise email marketing strategies before sending out new ones because email campaigns that are sent out too quickly can give email marketers a negative perception among email recipients. The tip here is to write your marketing email and put it aside for a few days. Come back to it with fresh eyes before you send it out.

Experiment

Experiment with email marketing strategies from successful email marketers who do email marketing differently. Successful email marketers know how to stand out from the crowd by doing things in email campaigns or in a different way to others. They use creativity and innovative ideas when it comes to email copywriting, sending whatever is possible as long as they can attract email subscribers and encourage them to read email messages through extensive reading of emails including subheadings and attention grabbing headlines of every email copywriting campaign.

Play nice

Email marketing etiquette matters if you want your company’s emails delivered into inboxes without being blocked or deleted by spam filters. What this means is never send unsolicited email messages to email subscribers, do not email email recipients who have already unsubscribed and never email email recipients whose email addresses are unknown. And use your manners!

While this might seem like common sense, even the best of minds can slip up when it comes to email marketing etiquette so it’s better to be safe than sorry. Safeguarding your brand’s image and reputation as well as ensuring email delivery into customer inboxes will come a long way in building successful email campaigns. These things matter because it is your name which you are trying to build through email campaigns.

Three tips on good email marketing copywriting

Good email marketing copywriting is not a result of luck or chance.

It’s actually the result of perseverance and sound email marketing tactics that yield good email marketing returns. The truth is email marketers can’t just write email campaigns, send them out to email subscribers and then expect positive results if they put in minimal effort into email campaigns. There are three email marketing tips for improving email marketing copywriting skills which will help you achieve well-crafted and successful email messages:

Tip one: Know your audience

What are their likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests? Find out more about them by sending surveys to collect data from your target market about topics such as what time of day they get online, where do they go for their answers to particular questions or queries, what email topics interest them most and which email marketing strategies email marketers should use to be successful in email campaigns. Other ways to collect email subscriber information are through data collection from email subscribers such as surveys, quizzes, polls and the like.

Tip two: Don’t assume

Avoid making assumptions about your audience’s preferences. Successful email marketers avoid assuming things about their target market because they know there is no sure way of gauging what email subscribers want without asking them directly. There are instances when email marketers assume that everyone will respond favourably to a given message or subject but the truth is not everyone does so by assuming too much could do more harm than good for your brand image in the long run. Once you know exactly what your subscribers want, you can write for them easier.

Tip three: Simplify

Keep email copywriting simple so email recipients can understand the email’s message. It’s a good email marketing practice to keep email copywriting as simple as possible and avoid writing long paragraphs because chances are you will not get any positive email marketing results out of long emails filled with text. In order to achieve this, there are certain email templates which you can easily apply in your email campaigns and build off from these while matching them with your company’s branding strategies for a successful email marketing campaign every time.

Overall, testing and refining is a surefire way to keep your email content fresh and performing well.

Need help getting outstanding email copywriting written to nurture your subscribers? Let me take care of it.

The post Email Marketing Copywriting – Can You Do Better? appeared first on Jones the Writer Copywriting Services.

Your mission: to write an appealing subject line that will make people want to keep reading. The subject line is really worth investing time and energy into getting right. This is going to be the device that encourages people to open your email and read it (and then, hopefully, click on the call to action).

Copywriting with specificity

…subject line needs to indicate or foreshadow what is actually in the email…

Most importantly, a decent email marketing subject line needs to indicate or foreshadow what is actually in the email and what the readers can expect to get out of it. Be sure not to misrepresent your email’s content. Much like copywriting a headline the subject line will need to have a great hook in it. Give specific reasons why someone should open the email (as that one hundred per cent the aim of a great subject line). Which sounds more specific?

1. Some great discounts in this email
2. Here’s how you can get 50% off any purchase in February
3. Buy this product now to get a discount

The answer is 2. Number one is too vague and number three is too “salesy”. Remember: it’s much more effective if you tell your readership what the email contains, rather than give them the “sell”.
Just like headlines, you might want to employ one of the psychological techniques in your subject line (as long as you adhere to the other success principles):

• curiousity
• offer/discount/promo sale
• direct benefit
• urgency/scarcity/time offer or limit
• warning

Length

Although there has been some preliminary research into how many words affect the open rate of an email, there seems to be no consistent number of words that prove best practice when it comes to wheedling opens. An older study from Adestra suggests that subject lines fewer than ten characters long had an open rate of 58 per cent.

Emojis

This is more of a personal opinion than professional opinion but I detest the sight of an emoji in a subject line, no matter the industry or brand. It cheapens the look and detracts from the offer or information. This may not always be the case for your target demographic, however, so it is best to do some thorough research and understanding of your target demographic groups to know how to directly speak to them. If you’re doing any business to business copywriting I would strongly recommend not using emojis in your subject lines or email body copy. World Emoji Day  on 17 July might be the only exception to this rule. 

Split testing

Most email platforms have something called A/B split testing. This is the ability to send your email to your mailing list with two or three minor changes, so you can ascertain which gets more of a response. It’s worth your time to try A/B split testing for subject lines. Don’t just guess what people will respond to- test the waters! These test results will be useful for the next time you send out an email marketing campaign and you’ll be able to see whether your email list responds better to questions or giveaways or rewards or whatever you decide to test!

Personalise

When it comes to email copywriting, try crafting the language to be personal (not at the expense of professionalism though). You may also like to include the recipient’s name in the subject line. Mailchimp discovered that including your company name in the subject line increased open rates. For example, Jones the Writer really wants you to learn about email copywriting right now

Email open rates

Even if your email copywriting is magic, it’s vital that you understand exactly how many people are actually opening and reading your emails. How do you know if your subject lines are doing well?

64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line.

Although it is industry dependent, Mailchimp purports that between 15% and 29% of your entire mailing list opening your emails is standard. Check out where your industry lies here.
 
Here are a few industries that most of my audience fall within. These figures are up to date as at 1 February 2017.

• Creative services/agency       22.41%
• Ecommerce                              16.75%
• Health and fitness                   21.93%
• Marketing and advertising     17.81%
• Media and publishing             22.14%

Grammar

Technically it is both correct if you capitalise the first letter of every word (known as title case) but my grammatical preference is to only capitalise the first letter of the first word (known as sentence case). I find it is easier read and promotes a flow that the eyes can follow easily. As with any great copywriting, avoid excessive capitalisation and overuse of syntax (keep the exclamation marks away) and apply good grammar.

Tidy and tight

Keep your email marketing subject line copy very clear, medium to short in length, professional and as a precursor to what the email contains. As with most copywriting, it’s better to aim for brevity and clarity over and above being to creatively “clever”. Although it may seem a little on the conservative side, it’s better to opt for something that works.

The post Email copywriting: effective subject lines appeared first on Jones the Writer Copywriting Services.