With 55 million updates on Twitter every day and several million more on Facebook, it’s no wonder marketers are excited about social media.

Whilst making a message that goes ‘viral’ is more pot luck than a defined strategy, you can certainly improve your message’s chances of being shared by including links to social media sites.

You’d have thought adding links to Facebook and Twitter in B2C marketing emails was a no brainer these days. It doesn’t cost anything to do, and it offers pure, sweet ROI.

But according to dotMailer’s annual ‘Hitting the Mark’ study of 36 leading UK retailers:

• Only 17% included a ‘share on social network’ link
• Half didn’t have a ‘Forward to a friend’ link
• Only 4 linked to their blog
• Only 3 out of 36 had a personalised salutation, which should be a crime

And it gets worse…

Adding sharing links can increase click throughs 55%

According to another recent study (by GetResponse) adding a sharing option to your emails can increase click throughs by 30%. And if you go the extra yard and add another 2 sharing  links you can ramp up click throughs as high as 55%. Not too shabby.

If these findings are concrete, UK retailers could be missing out on millions in sales, simply because they haven’t made their emails to share.

So don’t you make the same mistake. When writing B2C (and perhaps even some B2B) marketing emails include links to Facebook, Twitter and any other social media site your customers might use to increase click throughs and drive up responses.

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There’s no question that email marketing is popular these days. As mentioned in my last post, a survey of small businesses found that 46% were already emailing customers, and another 36% planned to start. Email marketing offers many benefits. But any suggestions it’s going to kill off direct mail are wide of the mark.

Email is low cost, multifunctional and a great tool for relationship building. But it can’t replace the physicality of a print campaign. An email is only a mouse click away from being deleted, whilst direct mail will sit on desks waiting to be read or physically thrown in the bin.

And most people prefer print. An oft quoted Pitney Bowes survey found that 73% of people prefer to receive promotions in the mail, rather than on their PC. This reflects that not everybody spends all day online (as us copywriters are prone to do) and many still prefer to get their information in more traditional ways.

So am I suggesting email campaigns be reigned in and more focus is put on direct mail? No, not at all – I’m suggesting do both.

Print can be the introduction to digital

A survey of Marketing Week’s readers found that 56% (surprised it’s not higher, to be honest) think that direct mail can influence top company executives, but only a fifth are currently combining direct mail with email campaigns. This sounds like an opportunity to me.

As the surveys show, print can be the introduction and email the spark that triggers a visit to your website. And integrated campaigns will be at its most effective NOW before they’ve become the norm.

A simple email asking whether they’ve received your direct mail can make all the difference to getting your printed message picked out on a cluttered desk.

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It might be Facebook and Twitter getting all the attention these days. But there’s one old warhorse of internet marketing that continues to deliver real results – and that’s email.

It might not be as sexy as its social media cousins. But email continues to be a reliable, trusty marketing tool for building relationships, delivering special offers and attracting website visitors.

And it’s popularity is set to grow.

According to a recent survey by Campaigner (an email marketing service provider) of 259 small firms: 46% are already using email marketing, whilst a further 36% plan to start in the next year.

So based on Campaigner’s survey, if you’re not already you should start actively promoting  your email copywriting expertise.

There are three main types of marketing email businesses will need your help with:

Promotional emails – Quick fire messages offering special offers, product announcements and discounts (coupons are particularly popular in these cash starved times). Although copy requirements are minimal, you’ll still need to come up with an intriguing subject line to get it past the spam filters and read, because open rates for promo emails are typically low.

Informational email – Newsletters are fast becoming the ‘must have’ for every business serious about marketing. These offer useful tips, product news and industry insight. They’re aim is relationship building, rather than the hard sell. Businesses will want to send these out on a regular basis, and will need high quality content for each one – which is where you come in.

Inspirational email – Delivering a sales pitch in the guise of a story is a great way of looping under people’s anti-sales radar. Success stories and case studies of how a product/service has solved a problem can promotes the client’s expertise and help project it’s personality (so long as you don’t write it in the style of a backslapping press release).

So based on Campaigner’s findings, it might be a good idea to fire up an email campaign of your own – promoting how you can help businesses build relationships with prospects and convert them into customers with decades old email technology.

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“They were easier to read than ignore” – Victor Schwab

It’s often said that copywriting can’t be too long, just too boring.

And sales writing is often only tolerated at the best of times. So if your copy is to weave its magic it needs to be light, easy to read and captivating.

Here are 15 tips for making your sales writing more punchy and compelling for readers:

1. Aim for an average sentence length of around 16 words.

2. Vary between short and long sentences to give your writing rhythm.

3. Split long sentences into two if they’ll survive on their own. Use connecting words such as ‘so’, ‘and’ or ‘because’.

4. Wield an axe to flabby language and unnecessary words. As Anton Chekhov put it, ‘Brevity is the sister of talent.’

5. Sales writing isn’t blessed with a reader’s patience. So ensure every word and sentence means something to the reader and adds to your argument. Don’t waffle or descend into a longwinded diatribe that’s of little interest to anybody but you.

6. Leave long paragraphs to novelists, and limit yours to a single thought. Two or three sentences is adequate.

7. Showy writing isn’t sales writing. Don’t use words just because they sound impressive. And leave jargon and corporate claptrap for the brochure (if you must use them at all).

8. Use positive inspiring language on what the reader ‘can’ achieve and ‘will’ be able to do. Avoid negative terms that might dampen their spirits.

9. Break up up your page with subheads and bullets to aid skim reading.

10. Use power words to charge up your writing’s impact, such as ‘revealed’, ‘proven’, ‘scientific’ and ‘breakthrough’.

11. Write in your reader’s language and the style they’re comfortable with. Read your target market’s magazines and newspapers to gauge the pitch.

12. People are hardwired to respond to stories. Use storytelling on how your product has solved someone’s problem to trigger the reader’s imagination and emotions.

13. Use facts or personal history to build rapport, empathy and to show the reader that you feel their pain.

14. Ask the reader a simple question early on they’ll say ‘yes’ to. This will precondition them to be more likely to agree with you and say ‘yes’ to your offer later on.

15. Sales writing is often compared to a conversation with a pal in a bar. So it should be conversational and sound similar to how you’d speak. Read it aloud to hear whether it flows smoothly.

Another tip I’d add is to keep a swipe file of the best sales writing you find. Study it, highlight key phrases and copy it out by hand to gain an understanding of how to write punchy copywriting that generates sales.

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[If you've arrived here from Google looking for an email copywriter, you can read samples of email campaigns I've written in my portfolio here, or send me an email (matt@copywriterscrucible.com) with details of your project and I'll send you a free quote]

So as promised, please find below my tips for writing email marketing campaigns which build rapport, relationships and responses from readers:

Getting emails past the spam blockers

With spam about as desirable as raw sewage, junk filters are getting ever more zealous in blocking suspicious messages. This means the tactics used by spammers to get their emails noticed and read are constantly being added to the blacklist of unacceptable email marketing behaviour.

So you need to avoid using a spammer’s language if you want to pass the gatekeeper; don’t use words and phrases such as FREE, amazing, buy now, congratulations, dear friend, great offer, investment, special promotion or winner.

Before you send your email give it a quick health check using Lyris’ free content checker. Simply paste in your email content to get a report on its spam rating and what you can do to remedy any of its ills.

You’ll want to ensure your email marketing campaign is permission based with a double opt in mechanism, which means after people register they receive a confirmation email with a link to click on to confirm their subscription. This should notify your subscribers’ inbox that your email address is kosher, and asking them to add you to their address book is always a good idea.

Getting emails opened – the irresistible subject line

As with every type of copywriting, your subject line is the most important part of the email: if it’s not compelling or intriguing enough to get the email opened then you’ll have wasted sweat and tears crafted all those words for nought.

Having said that, writing an irresistible subject line that gets every email opened by every customer is tricky (if not impossible).

However, a good place to start in creating your attention grabber is to create an impression of your target reader and what makes them tick: what are their interests, problems and aspirations? How can you entice them with information in your subject line they’ll be rushing to read?

Remember that email is more personal than your website, so your subject line needs to sound intriguing and friendly, rather than formal, hype or salesy (leave  corporate copy for the brochure).

A couple of ideas for subject lines include:

• Describe a benefit they’ll get from your email
• Offer to solve a problem
• Arouse curiosity with an interesting fact or question
• Appeal to their desire for information by hinting at your email’s content
• Use an editorial magazine style headline
• Finish a partly completed subject line with an ellipsis (…) to create a sense of incompleteness that must be resolved
• Use your database to personalise your subject lines with the receiver’s name or the product they’ve shown an interest in
• Don’t be too clever and use deceptive ploys and promises you can’t backup. Trust is easy to lose and difficult to win back

Getting emails read – focus on the reader

As discussed in my previous post, email is a potent conversation tool that can create a dialogue and build relationships with customers. So the way you communicate should be in the manner of a one-to-one conversation between friends.

You want to sound like a trusted pal getting in touch with useful advice to help them solve a problem. Certainly not like a pushy salesman, whose only interest is in their credit card number.

Write in a style that appeals to the personality type of your target audience (whilst also reflecting the personality of your brand). So remember to picture your target reader in your head whilst writing and imagine how you’d address them face to face.

To structure your email you can rely on the trusty AIDA copywriting principle to guide your words. After a brief intro or comment on the news, discuss a problem the reader might have (or might not yet be aware of). Offer to sound sympathetic and understanding, tell them a story which shows how it’s a problem you’ve experienced yourself.

Then it’s a smooth transition to the desire trigger by explaining how your product or service is the solution, whilst sounding helpful and trustworthy, of course. Give factual and descriptive information to add concrete to the foundations of your offer.

Remember to stay on point throughout your email and guide your readers along a single line of thought, because you don’t want them to be confused or distracted with too much information before they’ve reached your call to action.

Getting emails responded to – tell them want to do next

Email marketing is about building rapport, relationship and trust with prospects. You can leave the hard sell for your sales page.

However, your calls to action could include visiting your website, calling your sales team or emailing you for more information. If you really want to push sales then send them to a specific page to discover more about your offer.

After your message has been sent, remember to track your stats for unopened messages and unsubscribers. Find out what parts aren’t working with a polite request for feedback and perform slight alterations or complete reconstructive surgery to shape your email copy so it keeps subscribers engaged for as long as possible.

People like to trade with those they know, trust and like, which are feelings a carefully written email marketing campaign aims to grow.

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Do you wish you could do more with posts you spent hours researching and writing only to see them disappear into the dark depths of your archives? Well, now you can thanks to a new autoresponder plugin for WordPress.

Whilst autoresponders are nothing new, the best thing about this plugin is that enables you to create and automatically send out emails from your blog for FREE. So no need to sign up to a monthly subscription if you just want to get more use out of old content by repackaging it as a newsletter.

Admittedly, the free version is light on features (e.g. you can only create one email series at a time) so you might want to consider upgrading to their paid version for more bells and whistles. However, if you’ve got a WordPress blog and would like to start experimenting with email marketing then this gives you everything you need.

So start digging through your archives for the forgotten gems you’d like to see unearthed and given more time in the limelight. A newsletter can enhance the marketing power of your blog because, as any internet marketer knows, the ‘the money is in the list’, and emailing useful content can dramatically increase your website’s sales.

Here are a few reasons why:

Maintain contact – The vast majority of visitors to your site aren’t ready to buy. By some estimates, you’d be lucky to sell to more than 1% of targeted visitors. However, a free newsletter offering useful information enables you to maintain contact with prospects long after they’ve left.

Qualified leads – The opt in form enables you to build a list of potential customers. The fact that they’ve opted in and taken action indicates that they’re already interested in what you have to say.

Relationship building – Providing useful, relevant content on a regular basis enables you to get closer to prospects. People like to do business with those they like and trust, and email marketing can enable you to speak personally and directly to them as individuals.

More personal – An inbox is a private place closely guarded from uninvited intruders. Being granted entry to this personal place means whatever you say will be listened to more intently than the sales pitch on your website.

Conversion – The content you provide enables you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, which in turn enhances your credibility and encourages prospects to become customers.

Multifunctional – Email is regarded as one of the most potent tools in your internet marketing arsenal (after copywriting of course). It can build relationships, enhance your brand and increase sales.

Next week I’ll share a few tips for writing newsletters and emails that get delivered, read and acted upon.

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