How to Write Marketing Emails People Actually Want to Read

As consumers, our inbox is often flooded with emails from companies trying to sell us on one thing or another. They typically end up unread and deleted. Yet, email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing strategies out there for businesses. According to a study done by Business 2 Community, email marketing has an ROI potential of 4400%. That means for every dollar invested, you’ll get an average return of $44.

To see this level of ROI you must create marketing emails that people find value in. To help you do so, we’re gathering our best tips to help you maximize your results!

Setting Goals For Your Marketing Emails

First and foremost, it’s important to set goals for yourself when crafting emails. What is it that you want to happen once they open the email? Some of the biggest goals include:

Traffic generation – If you are a blogger, this may be your objective. Emails can be an effective way to promote the content you write for your site.
Revenue generation – This is the type of email that you see with e-commerce/retail businesses. Whether it’s promoting a sale, a new product, etc., the main focus is bringing in more revenue.
Lead Nurturing – Lead nurturing is the process of building trust with your clients and customers with the end goal of earning their business.
Awareness – According to the Marketing Rule of 7, potential customers need to hear about/interact with a brand or company seven times before buying a product or service. Using email marketing is one of the easiest ways to stay fresh in their mind while also educating them. This can lead to that inevitable purchase down the line.

How Often Should You Send Out Marketing Emails?

This is a question with no right or wrong answer. There will never be one fast rule about how often you should be emailing your audience because every audience is vastly different. We recommend asking your subscribers what they want to see from you. Once you receive the feedback, you can then do some A/B testing to see what performs best. Track an email’s deliverability, open rate, and click-through rate to determine what works and what does not.

How To Write Marketing Emails People Want to Read

Build Up Your Email List

Before you can begin sharing emails, you need people to send them to! To build up your list, there are a few things you can do. Most importantly, add a banner or form to your website that simply asks people to sign up. While this may not accumulate a long list of email subscribers right away, your list will grow as you build up your readership.

One of the faster ways to build up an email list is to offer an incentive. You can do this by offering a freebie (could be a useful PDF, a sneak peek at a course you’ve created, a free template, etc.), a contest/giveaway, a newsletter, or simply product updates.

Understand Who You’re Writing To

Another important thing to keep in mind when beginning to craft an email is knowing who your audience is. Take a second and put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what matters most to them and what kind of content they find most engaging and informational.

With this in mind, you can use email segmentation–aka a way to provide the most relevant content for your audience–to create targeted campaigns that will answer the questions you asked yourself earlier.

Write A Killer Subject Line

Now that you’re ready to write, it’s time to develop an attention-grabbing subject line. You want to make it interesting without coming off as too pushy. The goal is to have your audience read the line and understand that the content within the email is important. Mailchimp, one of the most well-known email marketing companies globally, suggests that you keep it short–no more than nine words or 60 characters.

The short and simple subject line should pique their interest, promise them value, or start a conversation. Avoid using excess punctuation or capitalization, as this can look spammy. And don’t be afraid to add some personalization by including the recipient’s name. Lastly, always proofread your emails before they go out. If there is a grammatical or spelling error in the subject line, your readers are going to be turned off immediately.

Take Advantage Of Preview Text

If you were to glance at your email inbox right now, there’s a good chance you’d find companies using the preview text to expand on their subject lines. The extra 60 characters give you a chance to elaborate on your subject line and get them hooked even more. This is the place to write straightforward teasers, use action words, and add any special offers or promotions.

Keep The Email Short

You want to inform and educate your subscribers in a way that is interesting yet straight to the point. If a reader opens up an email to find an endless wall of text, they’re going to bounce quickly. You want to respect their time by trimming your message to as few words as possible. Bullet points and numerical lists are welcome here.

There’s no need for small talk or irrelevant information unless it pertains to your message. And while there’s nothing wrong with injecting humor or witty comments into an email to give it some personality, emails are meant to be opened and quickly scanned, which then (hopefully) leads to conversions.

Make It Visual

Speaking of a wall of text, break up copy with images and videos. However, don’t go too crazy with the visuals. You want the photos and videos to complement your message rather than just being there for effect. If possible, images should be brand-specific and even created specifically for the campaign. If it is not possible, don’t sweat it. There are hundreds of resources online–such as Unsplash and Pexels–that offer high-quality images. As for the video, you can embed almost any video you find from YouTube and Vimeo, so the possibilities are endless.

Include Clear Calls To Action

If you’re taking up your reader’s time and inbox space, it’s important to have a reason. Consider what you want to be the takeaway. In most cases, you want them to take some kind of further action, whether it be purchasing something or engaging with more of your content.

For every email that you send, there should be one single CTA that you want your reader to take. If you give them too many options, they will become confused. When instructing them to take that one call of action, set them up with expectations for what will happen once they do. This will ensure they are not disappointed once they take that step.

Optimize Content For Mobile

According to 99Firms, 85% of users use smartphones to access their emails, and 47% use a mobile application to check their email. That’s why it’s crucial to optimize emails to be mobile-friendly. If you’re not a web designer and unsure how to do this, there’s no need to worry. Many campaign-building sites (like Mailchimp and Flodesk) do all of the hard work for you.

If you are doing it on your own, you can appeal to mobile users by:

Keeping the formatting in a single column that’s under 600 px wide
Using larger fonts that are easier to read on the small screen
Making sure the email looks good without images, as they may not load on the phone
Using smaller images
Making CTA buttons bigger
Keeping links spread apart so that they don’t tap the wrong one on accident

Final Thoughts On Marketing Emails

Before sending out your emails, consider whether or not you would want to read them. Do they provide value? Will your audience find them insightful? If you become uninterested while writing it, they’re going to become uninterested while reading it. Now that you know the basics of writing a marketing email, you’ll be able to craft meaningful emails that will generate new leads and grow your business.

If you want to spend more time focusing on your email marketing strategy and less time on finances, be sure to reach out to us here. We’ll help you with bookkeeping, accounting management, and business advising so that you can focus more on connecting with your customers.