Email marketing has been a part of business since the early days of the internet. Many businesses fail to implement its effectiveness in making sales. Creating an effective and impactful copy for your emails is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan.
If you’re trying to decide if you should spend time creating all those emails, consider this:
- According to Statista, the number of email users worldwide is expected to reach 4.48 billion in 2024.
- As per Statista, the number of active email accounts was 4.14 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach 4.9 billion in 2025.
- According to the Data & Marketing Association’s (DMA) 2021 Email Benchmarking Report, 92% of marketers said email was important or very important to their business.
- According to a survey conducted by Campaign Monitor, email marketing has an ROI of, 4,400%, which means for every dollar spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.
As these figures clearly show, email is essential and to be expected in your marketing plan. But with the abundance of businesses sending emails, your content needs to be of the best quality and impactful to get conversions.
Of course, the first step is to create a compelling and irresistible free offer to get people on your list. Then you need to create emails that will be effective in bringing in the money from your offers.
There are different types of emails for different situations.
There are welcome emails, promotional emails, new customer emails, client or lead engagement, cold list re-engagement, emotional trigger emails, special offer emails, new product or launch emails and many other types.
How do you know where to begin or what type of email to send?
In this guide, we’ll show you where to begin with the basics of creating high converting emails. It’ll give you the details on what you need to write and how to set your email goals. Then we’ll move on to the why and when to use certain types of email.
The persuasion strategies section helps you get comfortable selling in your emails.
The email copy and copy fundamentals sections are powerful for creating copy that converts.
Finally, we’ll look at the different methods you can use when creating your copy.
Let’s get started.
Setting the Email Goal
Now that you know the importance of marketing with email, you might be at a loss as to where to begin. Like almost everything in business, it begins with a goal of what you want to achieve.
First, we’re going to assume you’ve created your lead generation materials and have started gaining a targeted list of subscribers. If not, that’s the first step.
Here’s a quick list of the steps you need to take…
Create a freebie for people to receive when they sign up. Have a way for subscribers to sign up. This can be an exit popup on your website, a static landing page, or any number of ways to for subscribers to sign up. You also need some sort of email service, such as Aweber or MailerLite.
Now let’s begin creating our goal for the emails.
Before you send out just any old email, first determine what the end result is you want the email to achieve.
Is it to get someone to purchase something or to open the email and connect with you?
Is the goal of your email to create better click-through rates?
Typical goals for an email might include:
- Getting freebie seekers to become first-time buyers of your service or products.
- Increase conversions by a certain amount in a specific amount of time.
- Getting cross-sells and upsells from current purchases.
- Increase click-through rates.
- Building more engagement from current clients or customers.
- Build more relationships for your community.
- Getting feedback about your business to make improvements.
For each email, understand who’s going to receive your emails and what they want to get out of it from you.
Ask yourself these questions to define your email goals:
- Where are you right now? Check your open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, conversion rates or your spam rates.
- What action do you want the reader to take? This helps you tailor your content to get them to take the action you want. If it’s to read an article, for example, then let them know why the article will help them.
- Who will be receiving the email? Know which segment of your list will be receiving the email, so that your copy, images and everything in the email speaks directly to that potential group.
- How will you get them to say “yes”? Decide what you are going to promise the readers so that your email helps them be the best version of themselves with your service, product, or information.
Think about why your reader initially signed up. Ask yourself these questions:
- How can you overdeliver on that?
- What do they want from you? From your business?
- What questions do they have about your niche?
- When do they need to hear from you?
- What emotions can you evoke in them?
- What are the next steps for them as your subscriber?
Now create a plan around the answers. Include the topics you’ll regularly write emails about, schedule email blasts in your calendar, and what areas people need support, guidance, or encouragement.
When you know what you want to achieve with the email, you can determine what type of email you want to send out and when it needs to go out. Spend the time setting your marketing and conversion goals before you begin the writing process.
When and Why Use Email
It’s a good idea to know when and why you are sending out an email. Most people who sign up for your list do so for a specific reason.
And those who have been on your list for a while fall into different stages of interaction with you.
Some subscribers are loyal and open all your emails.
Others have gone cold and need persuasion to begin engaging with your emails again.
Some have joined you for a specific product or service you offer and only want to know about those.
You can tell what type of emails your subscriber wants by who they are and what they do when they come to your site. This can also help you understand when to send specific emails.
Maybe they:
- Browse around, add some things to their cart, then leave: The Abandoned Cart email is triggered.
- Enthusiastically subscribed to your list: Perfect time for the Welcome email.
- They’ve been a long-time loyal customer: Reward them with an anniversary email. These can be Milestone emails or Special offer emails.
- Post Purchase emails to new buyers who have purchased something from you. These Confirmation emails are the first ones your new subscriber gets from you. It tells them about your business and your values, helping you begin building a relationship with them. It’s also a great time to give them options to see your other products.
- Boost engagement with your business and content. These can be Promotional emails that try to make an initial sale or promotes your new webinar.
- Re-engage cold subscribers. This email tries to get subscribers who haven’t been active to take some sort of action. These can be Review Request emails or Persuasion emails.
- Nurture your existing subscribers. These emails are the relationship builders. They provide value to the subscriber. Use Nurture emails to keep in contact and build communication with your loyal subscribers. These can be Newsletters or Curated content emails.
- Are interested in a specific subject or product you offer. Here, you would be segmenting your subscribers with targeted emails. Segmenting allows you to send emails that specifically target a group of subscribers. These can be New Product Announcement emails, Nurturing or Promotional emails.
Sending emails at the right time and for the right reason keeps your list engaged and converting. For example, if you’re promoting a sale or affiliate product that ends soon, send out an initial email a day or two before the sale starts, then one every day or two and finally send one in the morning and one in the evening the day the sale ends. This keeps you in front of them and helps remind them to take action.
Writing to Meet Your Goal
You’ve established your reasons for sending out an email. You know exactly what the purpose of each email is and what needs to happen with it. Now it’s time to create the copy to help you meet your goal.
Your copy should:
- Have a clear message and purpose. It should provide valuable information, invite your subscriber to take a specific action, and/or offer them something tangible.
- Be appealing at first glance. Emails that are clearly promotional often don’t get opened. This is where you need an intriguing and tempting subject line.
- Have the appropriate tone for your audience. Using a relationship marketing approach builds long term success with your subscribers.
- Be trustworthy and accurate. Proofread before sending to prevent costly grammatical or other errors.
- Work toward the one goal of that email. Don’t confuse the reader by talking about a half dozen things when you really only want them to do something specific, like buy a certain product.
- State exactly what your subscriber will get from the email near the beginning of the copy.
Here are some examples of the different types of copy for different emails:
Welcome email copy: The goal is to say hello to your new subscriber. It’s the most basic first email you can send. In a few short paragraphs, welcome the subscriber, and thank them for joining. Include a short blurb about who you are and what they can expect from you. Invite them to click through to your site to learn more about you.
Nurture email copy: the goal here is to connect and build relationships. Your copy can be educational, informative or storytelling. You can include curated content that helps them. Your call to action might be to get them to connect with you on social media.
Sales/promotional copy: the goal here is obviously to get them to buy your offer. Your copy needs to stand out from others. It needs to let them know what makes it so valuable to them and why they need it.
Whatever the goal of your email is, tailoring the content to it is essential for getting subscribers to click through and convert to buyers.
Make your copy personalized to your reader, relevant to your service and cohesive to your brand, meaning it should be in your voice, match your tone and mission and still be readable.
Persuasion Strategies
Effective persuasion isn’t about manipulating people to make a sale.
Instead, it’s demonstrating how a purchase is in your customer’s best interests. It gives them all the facts and benefits, so they can make the best decision themselves.
There are six basic rules of persuasion that can be used in almost any situation.
- Reciprocity – You give something to get something in return.
- Scarcity – Supply is low, so the demand for product increases.
- Authority – Establish yourself as the expert in your field to get others to listen to what you have to say and follow your advice.
- Consistency – Keeping your word when you say or do something, always showing up.
- Liking – People favor others they find attractive, have similar qualities or interests. This makes the customer trust your message and follow your advice.
- Consensus – The majority are using a certain product or service; others will like and respect their cues. This is what makes testimonials effective when you use them in your emails.
Using these persuasive strategies in your copy will help you create compelling copy that can be used in any type of email. These different types of persuasion strategies can be employed in different ways as well.
Email Copy Best Practices
Your email copy is the driving force that gets others to take action. Even though you might be sending an email to get your reader to buy something from you, you still what to use the email copy that follows the best practices.
Use these best practices to create emails that get opened.
- Get personal by using their name in the body of the email.
- Tease your message with a subject line that connects to the first line of your message. Don’t be too cryptic or too general, though.
- Don’t overwhelm them with a detailed backstory. Keep it short and sweet. A subject line of 6 to 10 words is ideal, while the body should be concise and drive traffic to your website for more information.
- Be clear with your message. People don’t have time or patience to muddle through a hazy, fuzzy or hard to read message. So, make it conversational.
- To generate a response from your reader, ask questions. You’re trying to get them to click, RSVP, visit your site or some other conversion, so they need to know what you want them to do. Simply ask them to do something, such as, “Can you give me your opinion?”
- Test, analyze and repeat with A/B testing. This simply means to test two versions of your message. It can be as simple as dividing your list into halves and using two different subject lines for the same message.
- Make it easy to share your message. To get them to share your message, give them an incentive. Ask directly for the share. Or you could offer a promo code or giveaway to new subscribers and those who share.
- Segment your lists so you can send relevant emails to the right subscribers.
- Every email should answer your subscriber’s question, “What’s in it for me?”.
- Every email should be to gain trust. Then you build on the goal of the email.
- Every email needs to follow good copy writing standards to bring in more conversions. Having subpar copy tends to cause customers to lose trust in your business and may lead them to unsubscribe.
Copy Fundamentals
Writing the copy will be different for each type of email you are sending, yet all will have some of the same fundamental elements.
For example, a welcome email will be more of a get-to-know me quick introduction, while a nurture email can have more personalized sections or story elements.
You want to write your emails in a way that is intentional. They should be easily consumed, which means short sentences. And no more than three sentences per paragraph for easy scanning.
Know who you’re talking to. You should talk differently to each type of person. Create a customer persona and then write to them.
Write as if connecting with a friend and asking them to take the action you planned for when setting your email goal. Write the same way you speak, as if you’re telling a friend about this amazing product you found.
The body of your email should carry out exactly what your subject line promised. It’s frustrating to the reader when they read the message only to realize it had nothing to do with the header. Or they click through your CTA only to find themselves on some landing page or site that wasn’t related to the email or the subject line.
Use compelling subject lines. This is the first thing the reader will see. It needs to grab attention and make them want to open the message.
Your preview text is the piece of text that tells the subscriber about the content of the email.
Make your message scannable. Use subheadings, lists and small bits of information. Throw in an image when appropriate.
Don’t make your readers think. Most will look at your copy and want to understand what you’re offering without having to decipher your words. Describe what your product is, what it does and who it’s for.
Don’t shout.
In other words, avoid all caps and don’t use excessive exclamation points.
It’s perfectly fine to get personal, tell a story and be friendly in your email copy. Appeal to your subscribers with an emotional appeal that spurs some kind of reaction in them.
Use strong imagery through your copy to describe the benefits they will get if they click on your call-to-action button.
Use “we” less and “you” more. Focus on them instead of you and what you want.
Finish your email copy with a strong call to action that clearly tells the reader what you want them to do next, such as:
- Limited time offer. Sign up now!
- Giant holiday clearance ends 12/24- Click here to shop the best deals!
- Act now to help save the tigers – before it’s too late!
Use strong verbs in an active voice. The active voice is when the subject performs the action. This makes the action powerful and calls the reader in more effectively.
Use these fundamental elements in your copy for emails that get better open rates and click throughs.
Methods to Use
There are many different methods of copy you can use when creating your emails. You want to use the right one for the type of emails you’re sending out. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Stories. Storytelling copy uses personal stories to share information. People love reading about interesting stories. It helps them relate to you and your product or service and see how it changes lives.
Stories encourage them to try the product or service themselves. Stores have an introduction, a problem, dialogue and a solution that grabs the reader’s interest, keeping them hooked to read the entire piece.
Short copy. Short copy is the basics. Use this when you just need to present the information in as few words as necessary to get the idea across.
Short copy works well for welcome emails, sending out a quick reminder about a sale, or reaching out to a potential client. It works well for impulse-clicks and snap decisions.
Long copy. Long copy is more about persuasion. It helps you overcome their objections to the purchase. Use long copy for different types of emails. Long copy can be used to build relationship, nurture or engagement emails.
Use long copy if the customer has never heard of you, they don’t know what the product or service is for, or for expensive products or services the customer can’t justify purchasing.
Series. This can be any set of emails you send out that take the reader from the beginning to the goal. Welcome email series is the most common. A series creates trust and helps you establish a relationship with your customer.
Another type of series is the Lead Nurture series.
It focuses on nurturing subscribers through the entire sales cycle. Other types of series might be the re-engagement series to bring cold subscribers back to active status. Or the abandoned cart series, which helps you get potential customers back; understand why they abandoned and help them complete the sale.
Informative. Informative emails are where you provide some form of value to your reader. You simply provide tips, inspiration or resources without expecting something in return (no selling). These can be in the form of a newsletter or as nurture or engagement emails.
Educational. The education email provides customers with industry knowledge connected to the business or product. It builds relationships and trust. You can teach the reader something connected to your business through relevant content.
These emails offer bite size information with a read more link to take customers to your blog or article for the complete information. It’s fine to add mini promotions to the email, but it’s not the main focus.
There you have it. The different methods you can and should be using in your emails to build relationships and better conversions.
Do This Next
So far, you’ve learned where you need to begin with the basics of creating high converting emails. We gave you the details on what you need to write and how to set your email goals. Then we moved on to the why and when you should use certain types of email.
In the persuasion strategies section, we helped you get comfortable using persuasive selling in your emails. The email copy and copy fundamentals sections gave you powerful tools for creating copy that converts.
Finally, we looked at the different methods you can use when creating your copy.
The next step is to begin creating that plan for your emails.
Set up a schedule and put it in your planner what, when and who your emails are going out. Then begin writing the copy so that it creates high conversion open rates.
In future guides you’ll learn about the anatomy of a high converting email, how to turn anything into email copy and email engagement hacks and the four pillars of email marketing.
