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Wikus Engelbrecht is a writer, journalist and digital poet at GraphicMail, an international email and mobile marketing service provider. His professional career in language and media has traveled the film, print advertising, magazine publishing, food theatre and online content industries since 2003.

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Writing Email Marketing Newsletters Like the Pros

Written on
Sep 29, 2011 
Author
Wikus Engelbrecht  |
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Writing Email Marketing Newsletters Like the Pros

GRAPHICMAIL - Email newsletters allow you to communicate quickly and frequently with your customers, but it involves a unique form of copywriting that a lot of people have difficulty doing well. Of course, writing an email newsletter has many similarities to other forms of writing, but it also presents some of its own unique challenges and opportunities.

Here are some easy guidelines for writing email newsletters like the pros.

1. Target your audience: It is important to have an idea about who your subscribers are and what they care about. To get the response you want, always highlight what’s in it for the reader. Some tips to help you get to know your audience include looking at your newsletter comments, email open rates and which links get clicked on the most in your content.

2. Think before you write: Before writing, jot down your main points or purpose. Decide what’s most important and lead with that, in the first paragraph if possible. Don’t leave important information for the lower parts of the newsletter. Remember, if you have a long newsletter, readers have to scroll down to see all that information. (To help with this you can of course also add anchor links to lower level content to the introductory section of your newsletter).

3. Write strong subject lines: Your subscribers get a lot of email, including plenty of spam. Your email will likely be competing for attention in a very busy inbox. So you will always get a faster response if you take a moment to craft a specific subject line that communicates why your message is important. Use GraphicMail’s AB split feature to test how appealing your subject line is – which is a major part of ensuring a really good open rate.

4. Tell readers how to take action: Every email that you write should have a clear purpose. Don’t leave the reader wondering why you’ve sent the email and what you want. Convey the desired action boldly and early in the message. Add your click-through links to a web page or additional article clearly, maybe even create a button instead to take readers directly where you want them to go.

5. Get your tone right: Sometimes, what you consider to be enthusiasm can be read as pushiness. Nobody is eager to respond to an email with an unfriendly, forceful attitude.  So review your email before you press send and think about how it will read and if there any phrases that could be misinterpreted.

6. Proofread: When you’re writing a professional email, spelling and grammar really do count. If you want your email to be taken seriously, take a little time to proofread for those embarrassing errors. And then, before you send out your campaign, use the GraphicMail spam checker tool and test for yourself how the spam filters out there on the web rate your message. Also use the Inbox Preview feature to see how your message will look in different email clients or programs; such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook and so on.

Written communication such as emails are powerful tools, but can be easily misunderstood because they don’t have the verbal or visual clues that we rely on to get our point across when talking face-to-face. The key is to communicate clearly and effectively so that recipients know exactly what they need to do in response.

Cross-published at the GraphicMail blog. Check out more email marketing insight from GraphicMail’s Wikus Engelbrecht.





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