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Email Copywriting
Email Copywriting
2. An attention-grabbing headline
effective.
Let’s look at a quick inbound example. This is an email I sent out
to my blog subscribers.
I wanted to start with this example, because it should
psychological genius.
2021”.
What qualifies as a “great” open or click rate will vary from list to
list and industry to industry, but for this list, these numbers
target audience.
I know who my readers are… and I know what they care about.
That has a lot more to do with the topic and who is sending the
making.
The goal of this email was to get people to read my blog post on
the point of email copywriting isn’t creativity, and you don’t have
has ever been excited to receive a cold email pitch. That’s pretty
into it.
Component #1… check.
Yet again, he understands that his audience does not have time
segue off the headline, ONE line to create context for the offer,
Now that we’ve looked at what makes a great email, let’s review
some quick, data-based tips to help you write better email copy.
stuff, I recognize that you may just be looking for some quick,
data-backed tips to help you write better email copy. Here ya go!
“Who” are you writing to? “What” do you want them to do after
they read the email? It’s difficult to measure the impact of market
research on ROI, but given that $76 Billion is spent on market
understand who you are speaking to, and what you want them to
identify these two things, make sure every part of the email is
the “what”. If any part of the email doesn’t seem like it will
Subject lines are the headlines of the email world, and while most
and going even shorter than that is better than going longer.
What works best on average is never a guarantee of what will
work best for you, but this provides a very simple metric to begin
testing around. Experiment in the 1-10 word range and see how it
emails.
in 5 simple steps
These are the resources that helped me cross $100k for
launch
these subject lines out to 45,000 email subscribers, and the clear,
and it turns out that making a clear, simple promise and then
are the sith. They are often more powerful in the short term but
you need to get the email opened at all costs, and you are willing
Quick Question
Why?
your subscribers into opening each of your emails. That’s why the
trilogy. It’s a bit basic and a bit boring, but it gets the job done.
nearly 40% open rate. In fact, once I had sent the follow-up email
to those who didn’t open the first, the total open rate ended up
The key here is that you need to treat these questions like the
answer the question, don’t ask it. And speaking of questions, how
Your email copywriting can really only be split into three parts:
1. The subject line
At this point, you should realize that, all else equal, 6-10 word
Promise headlines use the body content and the overall content
from the summary of the body copy, which means they are going
here. If you can maintain alignment between the subject line, the
body copy, and the CTA, you can try new things and stray a bit
from the promise subject line, assuming you want to. And on the
other side, if the promise you pull out of the body copy isn’t really
the main point of the copy, you are going to lose a bit of
alignment, which can hurt the trust you are trying to build.
7. Tell a story in the body copy.
nearly anything else you can stack up against it. In a large survey
marketing success.
Storytelling let’s you directly influence the emotions of your
readers and align those emotions with what you want them to
persuasion, not all words are created equal. This primarily has to
do with emotion. Certain words tend to invoke sharper
the Sumo brand, so if you are looking for some MVP words for
your email copy, check out their list of over 400 power words.
moved to the spam folder more often than not. And this massive
handy. That said, keep in mind that avoiding certain words won’t
they are guessing. You can research your audience all you want.
You can follow all the best practices. You can implement every
copywriting tip in the book. But at the end of the day, it’s just a
guess until the data comes in. If you want to really optimize your
and see what works best. The easiest way to begin doing this is by
you are willing to try new things and track the results, the better
Now that we’ve covered some quick ways to improve your email
there’s only so much you can accomplish via a few writing tips.
First of all, when someone says “email copywriting”, they aren’t
context, and in that context, there are really only two main uses
for email:
1. Inbound Marketing
2. Outbound Sales
using email to grab new people’s attention and turn them into a
there.
giving people what they want, so that they come to you (rather
than the other way around), and then they come back to you
First, you get the email addresses of people you most want to
Why?
can reach them until THEY decide they don’t want to hear from
algorithm.
You send an email. They get the email. Pretty much every time.
And in inbound marketing, you are going to send a lot of emails.
one email per day over 5 days, and introduces the new
website.
The bigger your audience, the more you might segment the list
you need to write great email copy within the context of inbound
marketing.
1. Understand Your Long Term Audience Relationship
copy.
1. Relevance
2. Trust
It all connects.
overall journey.
relevant to the content you are going to send them later, and all
writing blueprint:
This is extremely relevant to the content they are going to get
That’s important.
The second critical component is trust.
background.
response.
emails you send and how they are written can also either build
For example:
What if you got an email from me with the subject line: “How I
Now imagine you opened that email and I explained how I landed
You might be a little annoyed but not really care, because you just
You would begin reading my subject lines with a grain of salt, and
someone making a lot of money would wear off, and you’d open
sacrifice long term trust for short term performance, and that’s
Now that we understand relevance and trust, let’s dive into the
details.
2. Promise Something Desirable In The Subject Line
If the sign doesn’t first get the reader’s attention and then
motivate them to come in, it really doesn’t matter how great your
The challenge with email is that you have to stand out in this:
… and you really don’t have a lot to work with in terms of
grabbing attention.
There are a few things you can try from a visual perspective:
1. ► Symbols
2. Emojis
3. ALL CAPS
But these don’t really do THAT much, and if they don’t really fit
No… seriously.
Dean’s Backlinko blog.
Look at Brian’s subject lines.
I have no doubt they work just fine for Brian, but they could be a
lot better.
with your subject lines and then deliver the goods in your
And when you dig into the content, it always delivers on that
promise.
Notice that all these subject lines so far have dealt with relatively
intriguing headline.
contract
How I made my client $415,305 profit in 9 months
lonesome?
These are headlines I’ve sent out in the past that performed well,
and it’s easy to see why. If you can cite real data, share an original
experience, or play off a popular brand name, all those things can
But I don’t want to teach you that as THE standard, because the
every week. Those big topics are maybe once a quarter or even
once a year.
As long as your content is relevant and you are building trust… it’s
lines.
Here’s some great formulas you can use:
I’ve seen literally everything under the sun, and I’ve seen most of
The issue here is that there are a TON of goals that can be
Teach a subject
Sell a product
Offer a discount
that seem to hold true across various content types and goals.
You can deliver on the promise directly in the email, or you can
example:
There’s also the matter of HOW you deliver on the promise.
did you dig through 1,000 salary listings and compare how
Or in other words, did you grab and share something easy and
“I put everything…”
“When I started my business…”
faced and how you overcome it, it invites the reader into your
shoes and lets them share in the “brain high” of overcoming that
challenge, making your proposed solution all the more real to
ongoing story, where you learn more about the person speaking
You aren’t the only email in your subscribers inbox, and if they
are interested in what you have to say on certain topics, they are
competitors as well.
This is why ORIGINAL CONTENT is so powerful.
original content.
into a subscriber’s inbox, you know they aren’t reading that same
But stories are just one example. There are many other ways to
This post drove a 27.7% open rate and 7.4% click-through rate, an
impressive figure for a 16,000 person email list, and far and away
illustrates the increased attention and value that people have for
Email body length can vary from really short to really long.
blog post:
… or pitching a product:
Meanwhile, Ramit Sethi does things a bit differently. Ramit rarely
sends a blog post that doesn’t extend for multiple screens. In fact,
goes.
You can make it short. You can make it long. You can tell a story.
The only consistent trend I’ve found is that the length of your
If you are sending them to a blog post, a long form sales page, or
another resource where you are asking them to read, you should
If you aren’t asking them to click or the landing page after the click
is brief, like checkout page or short landing page, then you can
ask them to invest their reading time within the email itself.
it makes sense.
There’s no reason to require people to do a bunch of reading
twice in a row. Say what you want to say either before or after the
click.
example that does what you are trying to do with your email, and
Here’s the best process I’ve found for writing great body copy.
or accomplish
accomplish
Ultimately, you have to find what works for each unique audience.
Sequences
should have:
1. A Welcome Sequence
If you have an email list, you probably need all three of these
sequences.
Webinar sequence
Onboarding sequence
Abandon-cart sequence
Purchase upsell sequence
Training sequence
sequences.
For example…
sequence:
Here’s the recommended sequence from Gregory Ciotti at
HelpScout:
in a welcome sequence:
Your Welcome Sequence can be 3 emails long or it can be 10
emails long.
engagement.
There are people out there who have spent years and hundreds
Find something you like and then map out it’s pieces and the
What does each paragraph within that email do? What effect is it
emails:
My current favorite resource for putting sequences together is
DripScripts.
Here’s an example. This is the first email from the product launch
template.
I used this email template myself for my Write Minds launch that
scratch, but I would RATHER benefit from the time and money
sequences, and steal a big chunk of that value for myself and my
clients.
That said, if I was working off someone who wasn’t offering their
sharing it in a blog post, I would take care to not have any direct
If it works for me, I’m willing to bet it will work for you too!
Now that we’ve covered inbound marketing, it’s time to tackle the
conversation.
to respond.
And that means we are free to fully embrace the Dark Side in our
you.
It’s not.
Not really…
what you have to offer. Many of them are actively looking for it.
Many of them WOULD be looking for it if they had the time, but
matters.
Your goal is simply to get your offer in front of them and make it
article?
You might look at that and go, “Lol cute, but I’d never respond to
And if you can maximize your open and response rates, you can
line.
We have the copy itself and then a few potential gimmicks to help
1. ► Symbols
2. Emojis
3. ALL CAPS
There is no real downside to using gimmicks like these in
against you.
subject line.
Quick question
Why?
probably know.
real.
If you have the time to do some light research, you can also
That’s fine.
who need what we are offering to open the email, see the fit, and
respond.
2. Maximize email response rate via the body copy.
Now what?
Your readers do not want to spend their time reading your email.
And if you want them to respond to you, you need to respect that
reality.
You want to do three things with your outbound email body copy:
2. Provide context
things above.
and if you pivot off them correctly in the body copy, you can avoid
a lot of the more negative reactions that come from people who
feel tricked.
line…”
It’s kind of funny and it leans into the elephant in the room.
recipient) know that while this is a cold email, she’s done her
research.
Most people don’t really mind being targeted cold if they feel you
of them and just bought their email as part of a big, faceless list.
legitimate reason for knowing who they are and reaching out to
them.
positive reviews, so Austin starts there and then ties it into the
Of course, the most powerful context you can have is the context
of a referral. And while the fact that you are sending a cold email
means you don’t have an actual referral, you can still play around
the referral concept by referencing mutually known people or
brands.
but the offer is still pretty clear, as are the next steps.
In my example, I’m a bit more vague on the offer, as the goal of
designed to imply that I’m in the recipient’s network and this isn’t
a cold pitch.
emails.
Why?
Because you are NEVER going to be the recipient’s top priority.
Even if they need what you are selling, they open your email, and
They might click back and continue through their inbox. They
emails that we HAVE to respond to, let alone emails we can easily
ignore.
up:
days to get back to me, I will put that in my calendar and ping
will respond and ask them when they feel like a good time would
alone.
But here is the kicker—if they don’t respond at all, I will keep
pinging them until they do. And trust me, they always do. :)”
Day 3: Follow-up
Day 7: Follow-up
Close.com:
this week?”
“Hey [first name], we got some new press coverage [link]. I’d love
Thursday 11 a.m.?
Most people hate doing cold email follow up. Even people who
it.
YOU CAN’T!
You grinned like a kid opening a Christmas present. Don’t you
deny it!
You don’t have to be as cool as Austinin order to get great results
But if you find yourself hating the process… have some fun with it.