Email copywriting is one of the most powerful tools in your small business marketing toolkit. Over the next few minutes, you’ll see how great writers use this medium to make you buy things you didn’t think you wanted.
Now let’s be honest – we ignore most of them.
But sometimes you see something and you can’t help but open it up and see what’s in there.
Good business writing should convert the curious into customers.
From captivating subject lines through an emotional narrative body and bold, simple calls to action – you want people to open up.
Why Great Email Copywriting Sells More
They say you know if you’re interested in someone within four minutes of talking to them.
With an email, it’s less than a second.
Rejection hurts. That means every word needs to have a profound impact on the reader.
With the right message, you guarantee:
- Higher Open Rates: directly or subtly, you need subject lines that capture your brand’s voice as well as your reader’s attention.
- Intimate Engagement: every open should be the beginning of a short story that compels the reader to find out how it might end.
- Better Conversions: by making it easy for the reader to know what to do next if they like what they read.
Who Needs Email Copywriting?
Every word sent to a prospect’s inbox needs to pique their curiosity, bypassing the natural filter we have all evolved thanks to years of spam.
The emails you send will typically fall into one of these categories.
- Welcome Emails
- Sales and Promotional Emails
- Nurture Sequences
- Re-engagement Emails
- Product Launch Emails
- Event Invitations
Each has it’s own style and form. The trick to writing a good one is to use techniques that have stood the test of time, while injecting enough personality and value that it doesn’t come across as cliché.
People hate cliché – this is true for email too.
How To Make Sure Your Email Gets Opened
· Use what matters to the reader and make it personal.
· Keep it short.
· Make sure it’s really easy to understand what to do next.
· Test, optimise and test again.
Here are some examples I received that are really nice – I read each one right to the end.
Great Email Copywriting Example #1: Rank Math SEO
Why It’s Great
This is a great piece of copy because it’s personal. It makes you feel like the Co-founder of RankMath, a company with more than 2 million users globally, has taken a personal interest in your journey.
The tone is casual but also grateful. This could easily be from a family member you’ve just bought a present for. Words like family, team, willing and help cement this feeling in the reader, leaning into the brand’s tone.
Now look at the subject line:
This is a commonplace intro for anyone who has worked in the corporate world. It’s understated but familiar, entirely matching the business-casual tone of the message. You notice it because its familiar and a little suggestive.
Did I click the link? Of course, I did. That’s a conversion.
Great Email Copywriting Example #2: BackMarket
Why It’s Great
This one is from BackMarket is a really simple, playful message. It uses direct, short, impactful questions. While these don’t elicit an answer, they draw your eye down so that you end up reading the whole thing.
The subject line is evocative:
It’s a “power word” – one that cuts through our slower analytical thinking and draws our instinctive attention. We can’t not pay attention to them.
This email is great because it has got you to open it and then it’s drawn your eye through a “slippery slide” of content – content where you need to keep reading because you don’t quite know what’s about to happen.
Then, when you scroll down to the bottom, you’re into some very clear, visually captivating, easily browsable content that might just pique your curiosity:
Even if you don’t need a case right now, you were likely tempted to see what smartphones were on offer – I certainly was.
Is email copywriting really the most cost-effective form of marketing?
Imagine having your best salesperson in the room with everyone who wants to buy your product.
That’s what great copywriting does. But without the commission payments.
Increase your marketing ROI, connect with your audience with power and insight, and then track what works and what doesn’t with an email copywriter.
