Time to read: 3 minutes 48 seconds
Many bandy about different 'rules' for using email, but, having tried many of them myself over the years, I find them somewhat lacking in practicality.
- They're either too rigid:
- "body copy must be under 200 words"
- ... too vaguely obvious:
- "make your content useful"
- ... or plain incorrect:
- "don't use email to sell"
So, whenever I write emails for my clients, I turn to my own 'house rules' - a list of email principles I've used to ensure my emails get results while leaving me free to do what I feel best in terms of the creative.
My Email Dogma
- The subject line and preview are appropriate
- The copy sells the next action
- The copy has an appropriate tone of voice (TOV)
- The copy is only as long as it needs to be
1. The subject line and preview are appropriate
Very few have an audience who opens emails by sheer virtue of their name alone.
So, the subject line and preview copy is your first real chance to persuade a reader to open your email and read on.
This is where your audience and market research is important.
Because understanding what inspires curiosity in your prospect comes from a combination of this research, alongside a keen knowledge of the messaging they've seen from you beforehand.
This is what I mean by "appropriate".
No hard and fast rule can capture this unique combination - but an understanding of direct response principles and experience can.
2. The copy sells the next action
Emails are a bridging medium not a selling one.
No email client, for now, can facilitate a sale; they can only direct a prospect to another place where the sale can happen.
So, until sales can be processed through an email, use your body copy to sell the next action towards making the sale. In most cases, this means having a prospect click a link to go to a landing page.
(I often ask people to reply to an email if they're interested in more information as the 'next action' within my own business.)
It's on this landing page you can best present your offer and make the sale.
(Note: there are exciting developments in email which may see transactions taking place within an email itself. If this goes ahead, email will act like 'mini websites' which are interactive and update in real time. You could schedule bookings, reply to a comment feed, or more for example. Google is working on it right now and it's called "AMP for
email".)
3. The copy has an appropriate tone of voice (TOV)
The tonality of your copy, the way you say something, has a big effect on your messages effectiveness.
So, while you may have the goal of "selling the click", how you persuade a prospect to do so can be virtually endless.
Take this example, where I ran a split-test on part of an email sequence:
- Goal: click through to a landing page to claim a free report
- TOV 1: describe the benefits of the report and how easy it is to claim; lay out clear steps to take - a 'sales' TOV
- TOV 2: describe the benefits of the report and explain how no one will be personally following up afterwards - a 'support' TOV
In this example, TOV 2 was the winner with a 35% increase in click-through rate (CTR).
I had a hunch people were anxious giving out their details because common practice within this industry was to follow up with several phone calls. That hunch was correct, and openly addressing the prospects concerns made the new email convert better.
4. The copy is only as long as it needs to be
Fairly self-explanatory. Only after the first three tenets are right do I then look at the length of the copy.
Emails should be as long as they need to be to do their job - no longer nor shorter.
This is much like most other forms of copywriting too, such as landing pages, sales letters, VSLs, advertorials and so on.
Every sentence should serve some purpose - otherwise edit it out.
And, there you have it. My thoughts on email.
Success Criteria
The criteria for a successful email then becomes:
- Is the headline and preview appropriate?
- Is the copy selling the next action?
- Is the tone of the copy appropriate?
- Is the copy the right length?
If all four questions don't get a 'yes', it's back for a round of edits.
(Unfortunately, like the cobbler's kids, I sometimes forget to take my own advice... we're all human, after all).
