Why Quality Text Content Still Matters in Email Marketing
Every day, companies around the world send out hundreds of millions of marketing emails, hoping to connect with their audiences and drive growth. With all that competition, brands are constantly looking for ways to stand out in crowded inboxes.
Throughout this series, we’ve looked at several novel ways marketers use cutting-edge multimedia content to encourage engagement among email recipients. While images, infographics, and video all work as effective attention-grabbers, well-written, captivating text is a vital component in conveying your message effectively.
In this article, the fourth in a six-part series, we look at how text – known as “copy” among marketers – works to deliver a clear message about your brand, improve audience engagement, and support great multimedia content.
Tips For Optimizing Text Content
One thing all good marketers know: no one responds well to a pushy salesperson. Instead of trying to sell your audience on your product or service, think of what you write in your marketing emails as a casual conversation between two friends. Be straightforward and authentic in your writing, and offer information your audience will find helpful.
Know Your Audience
The secret to writing engaging emails is to have an understanding of the recipient on the other end. This person is your target customer.
Many companies invest in a process of establishing a formal buyer persona using data-driven metrics and behavioral psychology techniques. For companies who are just starting down the path of understanding their audience, discovering your target customer can begin as an act of imagination. Take some time to flesh them out in your mind.
- Who are they exactly? What’s their name, age, and profession?
- Are they new or returning customers?
- What problems does your product or service solve for them?
- How do they want to interact with your brand?
Creating a specific picture in your mind of whom you’re writing to will help you know exactly what to say in your email and how to say it authentically. For more about knowing your audience, stay tuned for the next article in this series.
Keep It Simple
It’s tempting to put too much information in your marketing emails. You want your recipients to understand how great your company is, so of course, you want to tell your whole story. But that isn’t the purpose of a marketing email.
The only thing your email needs to do is to prompt a recipient to take one single action. That’s it. Everything else you want to say can be said elsewhere, like on your website or on a sales call. When you write your marketing emails, structure them around these three basic areas, and strive to keep them as succinct and straightforward as possible.
- Subject Line. The job of your subject line is to get your recipient to open the email instead of trashing it or moving it to junk. Keep it short – no more than 6 or 7 words and under 40 characters. Tell your audience clearly what they can expect when they open your email.
- Short Sentences & Paragraphs. The best marketing emails are easy to read. Don’t overwhelm your recipient with too much text. Say what you mean clearly and concisely.
- Call To Action (CTA). This is the action you want your recipient to take when they engage with your email, like clicking on a link to your website or scheduling a phone call. Don’t confuse your reader with more than one CTA. A good rule of thumb: one email, one CTA.
Be Yourself
No matter what business you’re in, the key to effective customer engagement is authenticity. Leave the buzzwords and industry jargon out of your emails and pretend you’re writing a note to an old friend. Having a picture in your mind of your target customer will help you to infuse your brand’s personality into your marketing email copy.
Optimize Your Copy with Admail
At Admail, we work with our clients directly to help them get the most out of their email marketing campaigns. Our specialized tools help small business owners and their teams optimize the great email copy they write to get it in front of the right audiences.
List Builder
Knowing your audience is key to writing great email copy. With Admail’s List Builder tool, you can create list segments based on important data points like geographic location, previous interactions, and demographic information. You can create up to 50 targeted lists to ensure that what you send will get in front of the customers who are most likely to engage with what you’ve written.
AdSocial
With Admail’s AdSocial tool, your target audience isn’t limited to the lists you’ve created. You can expand your reach to your social media networks to get your messaging in front of a wider readership and help to expand your subscriber list.
Email Builder
A professional-looking email is just as important as a well-written email. Admail’s Email Builder tool allows users infinite design possibilities with our customizable templates and flexible tools. Make sure your targeted copy is read by the most recipients by designing a beautifully branded, responsive email that looks great on any platform it’s viewed in, whether that’s mobile, desktop, or web-based.
AccuTrak
Once you’ve written a fantastic email and sent it out, it’s vitally important to know what kind of engagement your email receives. AccuTrak is a real-time reporting tool that tracks important data like open and click-through rates, unsubscribe requests, and non-deliverables. With this tool, you’ll know how long a recipient has engaged with your brilliant email copy and if it’s prompted them to click your call to action.
If you’re ready to start writing effective marketing emails that will drive customer engagement and help your business grow, now’s the time to reach out to Admail for a free 30-day trial of our industry-leading email management tools and services.
Check back soon for our next article that will delve deeper into the power of knowing your target audience for creating high-quality text content for email marketing campaigns.