5 Email Copywriting Tips to Write Better Marketing Emails

Email marketing is one of the most common tools that businesses use to reach their customers. Whether it's to sell a product, get someone to sign up for a free trial, or to just book a meeting, email copywriting is usually the first method of outreach.

But writing email copy that actually converts can sometimes be harder than you'd like. These days people are so used to getting hundreds of emails per day that you need to make sure that the email copy you're putting together cuts through the noise and gets them to take action!

Here are 5 email copywriting tips to write better marketing emails that will help ensure your next email is your best email!

5 Email Copywriting Tips to Write Better Marketing Emails

These tips should be helpful for you no matter what the goal of your email copy is. These tips come from years of email marketing experience, writing thousands of emails for myself and my clients all over the world.

I've used these email copywriting best practices throughout my career in sales, and my career as a pro copywriter to help my clients, I hope they help you too!

1. The subject line should prepare them for what's to come in the email body

When it comes to the email subject line it's important that it gets people to actually open the email. But it's equally important that the subject line prepares them for what's to come in the body of the email.

Why?

I can't tell you how many times I've received an email where the subject line implies that the email is about something in my personal life. Things like "urgent doctors appointment" or "you missed a car payment" things that obviously get the recipient worried enough to open the email.

But when the email is opened and the body reveals that the email has nothing to do with the subject line, trust is immediately lost.

Who ever came up with this strategy for boosting email open rate is a bit of a scammer in my opinion!

Make the subject line compelling, but also make sure it's not smoke and mirrors. It's the first place you have to build trust with your prospect and it should be related to the body of the email in some way.

2. It's ok to speak casually in a marketing email

Marketing emails don't need to be super formal. These days receiving emails has become second nature for everyone with a mobile phone. So lighten up!

You can speak casually while still writing an effective email. One tip that I love for writing great marketing copy is to write the way that you speak. It helps you create email copy that flows, seems genuine, and is natural for the reader.

It is important to note that you should still "read the room" so to speak. If you are trying to write compelling emails for politicians it might warrant a different tone than copy written for Yoga studios. Use your brain.

So if you're writing an email for something that you're not super comfortable with, try to lighten up the mood a little. Lose the corporate jargon and try writing it like it was going out to an old acquaintance, it might help!

3. Don't try to sound smart, it might make you sound dumb

This is probably my #1 tip for every email copywriter I speak with. You shouldn't intentionally try to sound smart in any email you're writing.

Why?

Well, because if you're trying to sound "smart" it probably means you don't have enough background information on what you're writing about. That's not good and will likely make your email sound like it was written by an amateur.

Trying to sound smart often results in you sounding ignorant, inexperienced, or both if your email is read by someone who actually knows a bit about what you're writing about.

The best solution for this is to take a step back, and go back to the information gathering phase.

Review your notes from your discovery sessions with your client, or better yet go back to your client and ask for clarity on anything that is still unclear to you.

4. Shorter emails are better emails most of the time

Your email list will appreciate you if you keep things short and sweet in the emails you're sending them.

A great email isn't synonymous with a long email. Especially if you're forcing it just to make the email you're writing seem more substantial.

Any email you write should be as long as it needs to be, but a good rule of thumb is that if you can shorten it without cutting out any crucial information you probably should.

This is especially important given how short people's attention spans are these days. Reading emails on mobile phones, people rarely have a scroll or two in them before they disregard a marketing email. Try to get as much information packed into the above the fold section of the email.

Above the fold refers to the visible section of the page that users can see before scrolling. So this section will likely contain more content if it's being viewed on a desktop, and much smaller if the email is being read on a phone. Keep this in mind when writing your copy as you want to give yourself a chance, even with email recipients who only read the text above the fold.

5. Make sure your email list is targeted

Nothing kills an email marketing campaign faster than sending emails to a random list of people.

Crafting your email is important and a time consuming process, so you want to make sure it doesn't all go to waste!

Good email marketing means you are taking time to write emails that appeal to a particular audience. It also means that you're taking the time to make sure that you know who that audience is, and have the intention to send these emails to the right people.

Not to mention it absolutely destroys email deliverability if you send out a campaign that is marked as spam by hundreds of people.

Many people fall into this situation because they purchase an email list rather than build one themselves. Purchasing a list might seem like a faster way to reach thousands of people, but if the list is not targeted it might as well have a handful of people on it because they still won't care no matter how many people are on it.

Optimize Your Marketing Emails

If you enjoyed this article and are still on the hunt for information to help you further improve your email marketing strategy you should check out my email copywriting prompts book on Amazon. CLICK HERE to get a copy for yourself.

If you have any questions about copywriting, or making money online make sure to follow me on YouTube and Twitter, I answer questions on those platforms daily!