Marketing professionals everywhere can agree on one thing: email marketing is always worth your time. Email generates $42 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 4,200% ROI, making it one of the most effective options available for small businesses.
Once your subscribers opt-in to your email list, it’s important to connect with them. These are people who have explicitly let you know that they are interested in what you have to offer, so now is not the time to drop the ball!
When you’re crafting your next newsletter campaign, it’s important to write it in a way that connects with your audience. Whether you’ve segmented your list (which we recommend!) or you’re sending out a special sequence of emails, your messaging should be done intentionally.
We spoke to our copywriters and expert email team here at Champ for the 5 copywriting tips you need to know to send better newsletters:
1. Speak with your audience.
Don’t speak to them. Speak with them. Good email campaigns balance updates and sales with personal messaging. Your email should become a bridge to further your brand’s relationship with the subscriber, instead of constantly pitching them to purchase your product or try your service.
Consider what is important to your readers. What is valuable to them? It might mean you share tools and resources that benefit them more than it benefits you. In the long run, you’ll build a deeper relationship with your mailing list and be able to more powerfully (and naturally!) pitch your own products and services.
2. Be specific with your call-to-action (CTA).
Whether you want to create a connection with your audience or ask them to buy your product, a clear call to action is vital. Each email should have one clear goal that is executed in every detail from the graphics to the copy.
For instance, if you are launching a new product that you want customers to purchase, your CTA, design, and copy should all encourage a purchase. Buttons that say “Head to our website!” are not as clear as “Be the first to buy this!”. All in all, tell your subscribers exactly what you want them to do, using active language.The action your brand wants the subscriber to take will affect everything about your email, from how it’s written, the way it’s designed, and even the day and time it gets sent. Make sure to establish this before you begin writing the content.
3. Write compelling subject lines and preview text.
When your customer receives an email, the first thing they will see after the sender’s name is the subject line and preview text.
Similar to having a good CTA, an email with a gripping subject line is going to make or break whether your subscriber opens your email or not. A great way to draw your audience in is with a subject line that includes action verbs. This responds to the human tendency to be competitive.
Ex. Are You Training Your Dog Correctly?
Similarly, the preview text should be short and sweet but supplement your subject line. In this example, it might say something like “Open for the top training tips from our experts”.
You can also stand out from the crowd by taking a cue from your personal life and using shorter text with a conversational tone. Instead of communicating like a business, communicate like a friend while implementing your brand voice. Think: “Let’s Chat” or “Are you ready, Charlie?” and fine-tune it for your business. While it is certainly not your typical business-style, it allows you to form a more intimate and personal connection with your customers.
Big brands also use emojis to stand out and get attention. In fact, emojis in subject lines can lead to higher response rates than traditional email.
4. Use ‘you’ more than ‘we’.
As always, keep the Golden Rule of email marketing in mind and make the email about the reader. Your audience should feel like you are speaking directly with them.
Instead of phrases like “We’re excited!”, reword your subject lines and body content to make it all about “you”, such as “You’ll love this!”. A personal call-out to the reader creates an action response.
5. Keep it short and sweet!
Let’s be real, no one wants to hear you rambling about yourself for 5 pages worth of email content. The truth is – they just don’t care!
Avoid cramming too much information into one email. Your readers won’t cry if they don’t get updated on every single thing that’s happened in your business since the last time you sent a newsletter.
Instead, focus on just a few items in each email. At Champ, we recently pivoted our newsletter strategy to break down ONE major topic throughout the email and highlight one other news story, client update, or business milestone as needed. This allows us to give more value to our subscribers without inundating them with a laundry list of updates.
Another reason why this is so important is that more than 70% of people read their email in a mobile app (Campaign Monitor). Due to the width of mobile screens, your already-kinda-long email on desktop will be way too long on mobile devices, and your subscribers may just decide it’s not worth it before they’ve even read your content.
Key Takeaways for Better Newsletters
These newsletter tips will help you stand out from the crowd and actually engage with your audience instead of constantly blasting them with content they never care about.
Remember to:
- Speak with your audience, not to them.
- Be specific with your CTAs.
- Write compelling subject lines and preview text.
- Use ‘you’ more than ‘we’.
- Keep it short and sweet!
Need Help Leveling Up Your Email Marketing?
We’ve sent thousands of emails for our clients using these basic tips. If you’re looking for a team that will help you level up your email marketing so that you don’t have to do it yourself, look no further! Contact us today for our email marketing services.