How to Write The Perfect Email

 

How to Write The Perfect Email? A very broad subject to say the least depending on what context you prefer to write in. But we are not talking love letters, we are talking an email marketing series which is going to help your business move forward. So let’s get to it…

 

Where Should You Start?

In true email fashion lets start at the top with the sender name and email title. After all that’s where you would begin when reading an email.

Crafting Your Sender Name

First of all lets get the sender name and email address correct, because the first things you see are sender name, domain and email title.

Hers an example below:

 

So what can you see in the image above?

The name above which is Dave Nicholson correct?

As crazy and as obvious as it sounds, when you create your email ready to send or plugin to an auto responder service (more on this later) as the business owner, you should be mindful of your name or brand, because that’s what the subscriber is expecting.

Imagine planning and compiling an email with a great title, but the sender and sender address has no relevance to the person or business the client is expecting? You are automatically initiating confusion for the reader.

You the business or sender are risking the whole email failing and all your hard work being deleted, because of an unexpected or unrecognised email sender.

Here’s an example if how this can happen step by step:

1. An email is compiled
2. You have a create title
3. You have great content
4. Your business is… let’s say Dog-Walking-Daily.com
5. Your email address is from brainjonesdwd36489@gmail .com

Can you see where this would fail?

The reader is expecting Dog Walking Daily, but the sender is brainjonesdwd36489@gmail .com. The email is immediately at risk of deletion, spam or unsubscribe simply because the reader has no idea who that is?

The first thing we need to do is establish your sender name or brand to prevent confusion.

 

Creating Your Email Address

Maybe not as important as sender name since most people or businesses define their brand as a name, such as Google, Microsoft or Apple. They may not define their username as Google.com or Microsoft.com or Apple.com as their sender name. Although with these big companies it wouldn’t matter due to the size of their brand.

However adding the domain extension can happen, it does get used and by default, some email clients will take your email address, and domain extension as the sender name.

Here is an example:

 

 

Notice the .com file extension within the branding?

What we need to do, as we’ve just established is have a relevant domain name that relates to your sender name. Not a different domain name (brand) and sender email address. They must be related and relevant.

 

The Title of Your Email

There is a complete post on subject lines to come, but let’s talk about the importance the email title has to play and how you can grab the attention of the reader.

Studies have shown that 50% of people open an email based on the subject line. This may seem a little excessive but it’s correct.That’s half your emails being canned because the title simply doesn’t appeal to the reader… wow.

You see, people visually absorb 3 things when they open an email initially. The sender, the title and pre-header (the first part of the email). Nothing else is apparent within standard email setup.

So, you would be correct in thinking these 3 items have to be the best they can possibly be and relevant to your business, niche and reason to send an email correct?

 

So how do you write effective email titles?

Please find below 6 tips to take your email titles to the next level:

1. First of all, take time to craft your title and pre-header. After all these are the most important parts of your overall email.
2. Treat both your title and pre-header as the most important element of your email, quite rightly because they are.
3. Don’t leave it as an afterthought, although I sometimes create a title then at the end of the email change it to something else with more appeal.
4. Be creative when crafting content. It’s not a gut instinct, remember what works, study and look at metric data such as open rates.
5. Try personalising with names and emojis (software auto responders have these features). Both personalising and emoji have shown to have positive effects on open rates. But don’t overuse these techniques.
6. Mix it up a little. You won’t see the same results from the same email style over and over again. Your audience will become aware and also blind.

With those tips in mind. Once you have your email title, name and pre-header in place it’s time to move on to content.

 

The Email Body and Content

The body of an email can be highly subjective, depending on niche, content provided and audience. Emails from one sender could have completely identical content structure, style, call to action and images, but not get the same click through from one niche to to the next.

Again, we are faced with what niche your business supports and how an audience reacts to your emails, which is something you must monitor as your business moves forward. You will over time get to know your audience demographics, therefore allowing you to pinpoint the email styles that work for you.

In the meantime, there are some tips and tricks we can look at to get those click through rates to rocket.

What Floats Your Boat?

Look at what floats your boat (what you like to see) within in an email? If it’s working for you, then chances are it’s working for someone else. We really aren’t that much different when it comes to engaging with email copy from the experts. Think of previous examples that could help you compile a good email:

• What was the last thing you bought via email?
• What made you buy it?
• Could you replicate the email?
• Did you like an email so much it really resonated with you as great copy?

Train your brain to watch for these examples when emails hit your inbox, doing so will make you a better copywriter. After all, we aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel here. Creating great copy is a skill that has been around for decades and the experts who write email copy are damn good at it. Learn from them.

Saving your favourite emails is a big help. You know the ones that make you open, read and click. You can try the same styles in your own business and see how it works for you and your audience.

 

Engagement

What we all want from our email campaigns is engagement with the reader. I mean why would you send an email if you didn’t want someone to take action, buy or engage with you on some level?

Engaging your email list means to get the readers attention, and if you have their attention they are more likely to remember you and read your next email in the sequence. It’s your job to become trustworthy and eventually your subscribers will buy from you based on the trust they have in you, your brand and your products.

 

How do You Build Engagement?

You can find below 8 tips to build engagement. Try these in your next email and monitor the outcome:

1. Add personality – Use words and expressions only you would use. Be yourself and speak with your own voice.
2. Write an interesting email – Throwout the dull “buy this email” and replace it with your own exciting story, a pleasant anecdote that keeps people reading.
3. Show interest – Genuinely care about your readers and their well being. For example, the Covid-19 global crisis allowed me to ask if peoples families were OK and how they were holding up.
4. Address the first person – if you have a big mailing list, don’t address the masses, address the individual and make your email personable. Doing so will build trust.
5. Don’t worry about being the best writer – Since it’s your voice, don’t worry about the way you speak. Your email doesn’t have to come from the Oxford English Dictionary, you can use abbreviations and some slang or trash talk. However, your grammar and typo’s do need to be checked, so check that email before you hit send.
6. Experiment with Length – Alternate the writing style and email length, send out short and punchy emails vs long and details. Your list will tell you what they like with unsubscribes and replies.
7. Mix it up – Dare to be different, it’s all a test. Change things around, work on new headers, new greetings, new graphics and signatures to see whats working for you.
8. Engage – Talk to your email list like they are your friends, reply to their replies, answer their questions, be available, don’t ignore people.

 

Email Format

As the times move forward, email formats are becoming increasingly more valid. Most emails now have HTML formatting to make them look like web pages. For that reason, we need to address the layout of your email. Here are some do’s and don’ts of how your email should look.

Do:

• Format your email in short manageable sentences which are easy to read and to skim
• Focus on your message within the body of your email. Multiple messages are confusing
• keep it simple and concise
• Have a great header graphic to advertise your brand
• Add your name and image and branding to the email footer again for style and branding
• Be consistent with your template and layout to build familiarity
• Maintain your font and headers and make your content look great

 

Do Not:

• Send plain text unformatted email
• Use unprofessional graphics
• Cramp your email text together, use spacing
• Speak to the masses rater than the individual
• Use raw affiliate links, use direct links or link cloaking
• Choose garish colours and unreadable font styles
• Brand your emails anonymous
• Confuse your reader with multiple subjects without pre-framing them first

Calls to Action (CTA)

Lastly and most importantly if you require your email list to do something (that’s why it’s called a call to action). You must effectively push your clients in the right direction.

There are strategies for calls to action. It’s the end result of all sales copy and apart from opening the email, could be classed as the most important part of the email.

All the factors we have discussed in the chapter are relevant such as the content, title and layout and also the engagement, but the CTA is where the money or the result is.

A Call to Action is usually set at the end of the email. Sometimes, you can find them at the beginning for a fast movement to action (people in a hurry sometimes just click), but usually you have to allow the email copy to do the work before you establish the CTA.

 

So how do we layout the call to action?

Your email layout should look a little like this from left to right:

 

Title – Body – CTA – Sign Off

 

Once you have compiled your email, built in and assured the reader of your message, built trust, explained the product or solution to a problem, it’s time to initiate the CTA.

Take a look at 9 killer CTA tips below to make it easier to compile your next email:

1. Keep it simple and ask for it – Nothing speaks volumes like asking someone to click. They don’t have a crystal ball and unless you explain to people they need to click the link they won’t do it. So sometimes a simple “check this out and click the link below” works.
2. Frame the CTA for them – CTA’s typically perform better if you phrase them exactly the same way your subscriber would. For example don’t create a clickable link with “Grab Your Free eBook” say “Grab My Free eBook” this is perceived as already owned by the reader to get their ebook.
3. Add social sharing buttons – A study compiled by Get Response showed that emails with social media icons gained 158% more clicks than emails without the sharing buttons. Social media inspires trust.
4. Add a countdown timer  – There are a lot of softwares available such as https://countingdownto.com/ that you can embed into your email to initiate a countdown timer. These create urgency and most certainly add to the Click Through Rate (CTR) of your email.
5. Set expectations – Tell readers exactly what they’re getting into before they click the CTA. For example Click the Button below to grab your time sensitive discount.
6. The power of the P.S. – I love this, did you know that a small percentage of people immediately scroll down to the P.S. without reading a word of the email body. The P.S. is a prime location for CTA.
7. Deadlines – Be clear on when the offer ends. A great tip I learned from my friend Omar Martin to enhance CTA was “You have until midnight to claim your bonus. If you are reading this in the morning then the offer has gone sorry you missed it”
8. Highlight the Benefits – Don’t throw in random CTA, it simply won’t work. You need to ensure the reader knows what they are clicking through for. List the benefits of why they should click.
9. Test and Learn – Yes, again it’s all about testing and learning what works for you. As we have discussed, you will find what works over time and learn the best CTA for you and your subscribers. Keep track of your metrics and you will find the best conversions.

Real World Example Check

Below is a real world example from my friend John Thornhill who knows his list very well. So lets check it out:

“Title:

This Isn’t a Magic Button But it Comes Pretty Close

Body:

I’m sure you already know by now that there’s no ‘magic button’ to making income online!

But the next best thing to a ‘magic button’ is getting your OWN product our there in the FASTEST and SIMPLEST way possible.

This allows you to not only make sales of your own with 100% profit but also build your mailing list at the same time!

Plus, when you have your own product you can recruit affiliates to promote for you. (This is huge)

That’s exactly what Dave and Dan are doing with their latest PLR offering.

https://johnthornhill.com/easy-online-incomes

They have literally taken all the hard work out of product creation and created one for you, complete with Private Label Rights!

For just a few bucks you could have your own product ‘ready to go’ and online in a matter of minutes from now.

Absolutely ANYBODY can do this, even if you’ve never released a product of your own before.

Especially when you look at the bonus I am offering that walks you step by step the right way to use and profit from PLR material.

You can check out my latest update about this offer here, along with details of my bonus.

https://johnthornhill.com/bonus/plr-bonus-update/

Until next time…

John Thornhill”

 

What are Your Thoughts?

Let’s break the email down and take s look at the workings:

1. The title – This Isn’t a Magic Button But it Comes Pretty Close – John Creates intrigue and and a loop you have to close as the reader. You need to open it to see what it is.
2. The Pre-header – I‘m sure you already know by now that there’s no ‘magic button’ to making income online! – Right off the bat John reinforces the title with the pre-header which you would see in the viewer of your email. He still creates the open loop you must close.
3. The Body – John immediately moves to the benefits of the product he’s promoting and drops a link to save going through the CTA
4. The Bonus Offering – John Reinforces the offer and enhances the buy offer by 100% by offering a bonus, so the reader gets more bang for their buck. A great way to increase conversions
5. CTA – You can check out my latest update about this offer here, along with details of my bonus. Simple and effective CTA and direct link to the product

This is a very simple email with so many moving parts inside. What did you think?

 

The Important Bits

Learning how to write the perfect email is important, it will tech you to become a better writer, a confident copywriter and ultimately give you an understanding of your email list and how to speak to the people on that list. Don’t underestimate the power of writing a simple email and just how that email can have huge effects on on your business engagement with your audience and also income.

 

Are You Enjoying The Email Marketing for Beginners Series

Finally, I hope you are enjoying ‘How to Write The Perfect Email’ and the series so far. if want to learn more or skip to the next part. Below you can find the links to the full 10 part series:

1. Introduction
2. How to Write The Perfect Email
3. 50 Email Marketing Headlines to Make You a Legend
4. Tools to Building Your Subscriber List
5. How and Where to Build Your Email List
6. What is Email Segmentation and How to Use it
7. How to Avoid The Spam Filters
8. Impressive Email Marketing Style
9. How to Automate and Test Email Marketing
10. Beginners Email Marketing Conclusion

Comments – Over to You

Please comment on your thoughts below. I would love to hear what you think about ‘How to Write The Perfect Email’. Is there anything you would add or any tips you yourself do that would help others?