Email marketing is still one of the most powerful tools in a brand’s pocket; there’s a reason the constant refrain from experts is that you should build your list. The average reported ROI on email marketing fluctuates depending on which industry benchmarks you view, but it tends to hover around $40 for every $1 you spend.
That’s an astounding 4,000% return if you know how to do email marketing correctly. And writing great content for your newsletters and marketing emails is critical to that success. Even the most skilled copywriters can use a few tips to help them craft copy that converts, so here are five email copywriting tips to help you drive conversions and boost ROI.
- Spend time on your subject line
You can’t convert if you don’t even persuade the consumer to open your email, so spend time perfecting subject lines. Good subject lines accomplish one or more of the following.
Convince the reader that the email has an important benefit for them, such as a promotional offer or freebie
Include evidence that the reader must open the email, such as the start of a tip or statistic that leaves them hanging for the meat of the information
Encourage the reader to feel they will be left out of something important, such as an opportunity, if they don’t open the email
- Use the preview text to your benefit
If that seems like a lot to ask of a little ol’ subject line, don’t worry. Most email programs include a short preview text — the first few words or line of the email — along with the subject line. Readers make decisions about whether to open your email based on both of these texts.
Email preview texts range, on average, between 35 and 140 characters, so make sure your first words really count. Never include boilerplate copy, such as links to your social profiles, bios or about us content, as the first text in a marketing email.
And while you’re crafting content, especially for these attention-grabbing areas, make sure you’re taking a stance. People tend to respond more to emails that use moderately positive or negative language than they do to emails that remain carefully neutral.
- Customise content for your audience and personalise it for your reader
Understand who your audience is and what type of content they want or need. Know that you won’t always hit email content out of the park on the first (or even fifth) try, and that’s okay.
Getting to the 4,000% ROI is all about testing, analysing and improving your copy so eventually you’re providing exactly what your target audience is likely to click-through on.
Automated tools for email marketing let you move behind customising content for an audience and let you personalise content for each reader. At the very least, you should use basic automation options to address emails to the person by name. This is especially true when you’re positioning your email marketing to come from a specific person within your company — the feeling of a 1:1 connection helps drive more conversions.
- Keep it short and hard-hitting
HubSpot looked at studies that included millions of emails and concluded that if you don’t have your own statistics on what performs for your audience, shorter is the better bet. In fact, the experts say keep emails under 200 words to ensure the highest response.
One Boomerang study noted that emails with between 50 and 125 words received 50% more responses. Another study showed that around 20 lines of text (that’s usually less than 200 words) was the sweet spot. Ultimately, you have to find what works for you, but start with short emails and test from there.
- Repurpose existing content via summaries, call outs or links
If you’re already investing in great content for your blog or website, you can repurpose it for winning email marketing to save time. Pull out the best parts or summarise the point of a blog post for a stand-alone email, or include carefully curated links to your blog posts within the body of an email to offer readers the chance for longer-form content. You can also use automation tools to customise link selections, so various subsections of your audience or individual readers are served content links curated specifically for them.
When you spend some time considering what your audience wants to read in emails and how to get it to them in the most efficient manner, you can turn your email marketing machine into a cost-effective conversion-generating powerhouse.
How can FlipRSS help you?
FlipRSS saves content creators and publishers time by fully automating email newsletters whilst delivering content personalised to individual subscriber preferences. FlipRSS integrates with Mailchimp to automate multiple RSS feeds in email newsletters. Using advanced segmentation, FlipRSS enables your subscribers to select the content they wish to receive enabling the automated delivery of personalised content. FlipRSS clients are seeing big immediate increases in open rate, click-through-rate, and subscriber satisfaction.
Once set up, newsletters are created, customised and scheduled automatically. Sit back, watch your email stats outperform your competitors and focus on creating great content.
What sets us apart?
We’re a small team. Small enough to really care. We care about the quality of the product we produce, we care about the experience of every customer we have the privilege of working with and we care about our impact. We’re here to do a great job of supporting, delighting and connecting you and your subscribers. We’ll help you get set up, so get in touch.