Still, no matter how cluttered your inbox, you read emails. Some make you think or feel something. Every now and then one even makes you click. How do you send more of those emails?
How an effective email actually works
The relationship between the subject line, preview, and body text looks like this:
- Contrary to popular belief, your subject line isn’t just about grabbing attention; it’s also about relevance. Relevant, timely messages are opened. Irrelevant matters are ignored.
- Your sample text (or the first line of your email, if you’re sending cold campaigns) should reinforce that relevance and timeliness.
- Finally, your email copy should deliver on the promise of the subject line and sample text with a clear, compelling message that leads naturally to your call to action.
Simple enough, right? Now let’s actually write the email.
Step 1: Make the goal clear
Every email you send should have one purpose. It should encourage your readers to book a meeting, register for a webinar, watch a video or listen to a podcast. In other words, what should people reading this email do or feel?
Whatever your goal, every part of your email (from the subject line to the PS) should support it. Be clear about this before anything else.
Newsletters can include all of these actions and more, but even your newsletter should have one ultimate goal. For most companies, that goal is to build relationships.
Dig Deeper: Email Marketing Strategy: A Guide for Marketers
Step 2: Clarify key and supporting performance metrics
After you define your goal, decide how you will measure success. Unique openings? CTR? CTOR? Answers? Log out, even? (List hygiene is important – not all unsubscribes are bad.)
Step 3: Prepare the assignment
You should have an email-specific briefing just like you would for any other channel. Ideally, it should perform two functions: operations and messaging.
Operations includes campaign logistics, namely:
- Lists.
- Segments of the lists.
- Target personas.
- Call to action.
- Links.
- Assets/resources (images, GIFs, video, etc.).
- Sender’s name and email address.
- Where KPIs are found.
Posts are how you prepare readers for your goal. What do they need to think and feel in order to act? The message section should include:
- Your unique mechanism or solution.
- Claims and promises.
- Backstory.
- Testimonials, reviews or case studies.
- Scarcity elements, corners and hooks.
- Subject lines.
- Sample text.
You won’t use every part of the command, and that’s fine. The goal is to outline your email and structure your message.
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Step 4: Outline your email
Now we come to the writing part. When done right, a solid brief will more or less outline your email for you. I usually start by choosing a copywriting structure based on the message and purpose of the email.
If the message focuses on pain or struggle, I use frameworks such as pain, unrest, solution (PAS) or attention, interest, desire, action (AIDA). When I talk about an ambition or change in mentality, I use desire, obstacle, solution (DOS) or image, promise, proof, push (PPPP).
I often start by taking the message elements from my brief and putting them into a basic outline in a Google Doc: subject line, sample text, body text, and so on. From there I rearrange or refine as necessary.
Step 5: Compose the email
Depending on how well trained your LLM is, you can also use AI for this step. But when you draft, you add meat to the bones of your structure.
The stronger your structure – and the more resources, stories and testimonials you have – the easier this part becomes.
Step 6: Edit your email
This is the most important (and often most underestimated) step in the writing process. As Ryan Law says, “editing is the process of improving the performance of written content.”
This is where you check and refine your copy to make sure it’s ready to meet your goal. Check your email and ask yourself:
- Does it support the objective?
- Does it evoke the right emotion or make a compelling argument?
- Does it support that emotion or argument with the right stories or evidence?
- Is the CTA congruent with the copy and the step we want readers to take? (If people expect prices, show them the prices. If they expect a webinar registration form, show them the form.)
If you do this correctly, you will get an email like this:
Dig deeper: “They did it, so we should do it too” is not an email strategy
The subject line demonstrates relevance and timeliness by leading with a topic that many marketers are thinking about and trying to navigate. The opening sentence builds on the subject line without repeating it and sets up the body beautifully. The body itself takes on a real challenge, promises clarity and concludes with a congruent, compelling call to action.
It looks simple, but meaningful emails like this only happen with a solid copywriting process. A bit like above. Try it out and see how it goes.
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