Writing subject lines for email campaigns can be tricky.

Their impact can decide whether your emails are ripped open and every word devoured, or dumped nonchalantly in the junk pile.

At this time of year there’s even more noise than usual in people’s inboxes. And so your subject line has to be able to demand attention if it’s going to be picked out from the hubbub of offers and promotions all clamouring to be read.

So how can you give your email the best chances of being treated to a minute or two of your prospects time?

These tips should help:

Tell them what they’ll gain

It can be tempting to try and be witty or clever when writing email subject lines, thinking readers will be so impressed with your creative brilliance that they’ll be desperate to know what your email has to say.

But this is a common mistake.

Humour is subjective, and your wit might confuse as many readers as it amuses. It also fails to achieve your subject line’s primary aim: to tell your recipient what they’ll  gain from reading your message.

People are only going to be interested in emails that can benefit them in some way, whether it’s saving money, being better at their job or more successful in their personal life.

So instead focus on writing subject lines that indicate a benefit (just like when writing headlines).

Tell them what it’s in it for them if they read your email – whether it’s news, advice or insight. Asking the reader a question can be an effective tactic.

Keep it short

People have little patience when checking their inbox, so it’s a good idea to keep your subject line short and sweet. 50 characters is a good target.

Include your location

A Mailchimp study of 200 million emails found that including people’s name had little effect on open rates. Probably because this tactic is so widely used by spammers. Including your location, however, can reel in readers because it’s more relevant to customers in your local area.

Words to avoid

The Mailchimp study also recommended avoiding the words ‘Free’ at the start of your message (to avoid being sent flagged as spam), ‘Help’ and ‘Percent Off’. These were all shown to reduce open rates.

WRITING IN CAPITALS APPEARS LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING

Throwing in exclamation marks also screams of spam!!!

Vary your subject lines to keep it interesting

Even after stumbling upon a magic formula, which gets your emails ripped open faster than presents on Christmas day, you shouldn’t keep repeating the same subject line over and over again. This just makes your messages appear boring and stale.

Instead vary your subject lines, along with your content, to build excitement in your news, important information and special offers.

What I’ve been reading

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples – Architect of one of the most famous headlines in copywriting history (‘They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I began to play!’) , John Caples shares his exceptional wisdom on writing headlines, the importance of testing and other copywriting lessons as valid today as they’ve ever been. It’s required reading for every copywriter; I’m embarrassed it’s taken me this long to add it to my bookshelf.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King - The 8th and final book in the The Dark Tower series has a predictably ambiguous and controversial ending, which you’ve spent 3200+ pages pondering over. The Dark Tower series is rumoured to be the next big TV project for J.J. Abrams and the rest of the crew behind  Lost. This rumour has fans shuddering and delighted in equal measure.

What I’ve been writing

This month’s highlights have been an integrated print and PURL (personalised URL) campaign for software for selling match tickets online and working on brochure copy for a Swiss banking magazine.

Post from: The Copywriter's Crucible

Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

Writing B2B emails is one of your trickiest tasks as a copywriter.

They might be brief (100 words max). But that just means you’ve got more to pack into every word.

Business people can be stressed and busy at the best of times. They don’t have time to patiently check through every message.

If you’re email isn’t relevant or interesting, it’s not going to be read.

So it’s vital that your email’s subject and headline hit them with benefits straight away. You have to make it crystal clear to them exactly what they’ll gain from reading your message.

Then you need to follow up with short, punchy sentences explaining why your offer is the best thing they’ll hear all day (without veering into insincere hype). You also need to explain why taking action (whether it’s picking up the phone or visiting your website) is the smart thing to do.

Imagine you’re running up ta friend to tell them about this amazing offer they simply cannot afford to miss. You wouldn’t start by introducing yourself and telling them what a profitable year it’s been. Instead, go straight to talking about your offer in the first line, and give them a call to action early.

Remember that an email inbox is a personal space. So your tone should be friendly, enthusiastic and address the recipient as ‘you’.

With so much to fit into such little space, B2B emails often work best when combined with a web page. That way your email only has to build enough intrigue and excitement to get them to your website for a longer pitch. Personalised URLs are great for this because they capture data on each recipient, which you can drop into your database for personalising future campaigns.

So to summarise – keep your B2B emails brief, don’t waffle and hit them with benefits straight away.

What I’m reading

Commonsense Direct Marketing (second edition) by Drayton Bird – My edition might 20 years old, but its lessons are as valid today as they’ve ever been. The fact that it’s written by one of the best minds in the business makes you sit up and take notice of every word. It covers putting together a print DM campaign in exhaustive detail, and there’s an updated version available that also covers digital.

The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories – As with many copywriters, I have aspirations/delusions of turning my hand to fiction someday. I’ve got an idea for a story around the implications of teaching a supercomputer morality, our ageing population and global warming. Getting back to writing stories has been on my ‘to do’ list for sometime. What’s stopping me? Fear.

What I’ve been writing

Some of October’s highlights have been updating copy for a well known ICT provider, a case study on Canal+ broadcasting the World Cup in 3D and a video script for a website aimed at internet entrepreneurs – I’m expecting video scripts to be a big market in the near future.

About Matt Ambrose

Matt Ambrose is  a freelance copywriter that writes brochures, emails, websites and anything else requiring words for businesses in many different sectors. Clients include Siemens Enterprise Communications and Technicolor.

You can find out more about Matt on his website:

www.copywriterscrucible.com

If you’re in need of punchy copywriting, which reels in readers and converts them into customers, contact Matt now:

matt@copywriterscrucible.com

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Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

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.

Post from: The Copywriter's Crucible

Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

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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Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

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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Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

“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.

Post from: The Copywriter's Crucible

Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

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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Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.

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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Copyright © Matt Ambrose at The Copywriter's Crucible Blog.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Themeforest and Divine Write.