Email Marketing. What to Write in your Emails. A Step-by-step Guide.

With a fresh cup of coffee by your side and your fully-charged computer in front of you, you place your fingertips on the keyboard. It’s time to do email marketing to your subscribers.

After a 15-minute cycle of typing, deleting and staring at a blank email template, you find you can’t seem to gather the right words.

Email Marketing. What in the world should you write?

Whether you have a lot to say and don’t know where to start, or you’re just dealing with the worst writer’s block ever, or you’re looking for new inspiration to level up your current email strategy, you’ve come to the right place.

Writing quality content – and doing so consistently – is one of the biggest challenges for anyone who sends emails. But it’s worth devoting time to. According to research from Statista, 86 percent of consumers would like to receive promotional emails from companies. And that means you want to make sure you’re sending emails that create a positive experience with your brand, and motivate people to take action.

So we decided to help.

While you can easily use the fill-in-the-blank templates from our partner email service provider to create any or all of your emails moving forward, it’s helpful to have an understanding of the basics of writing effective email content. This will help you get the most out of the templates in that guide, and give you the knowledge to write your own amazing emails in the future.

With that said, here are six tips on writing great emails.

1. Bring value to your readers.

Your subscribers are busy individuals, and they won’t always consider your emails a top priority – especially if they’re subscribed to dozens of other email lists. To ensure yours stand out in the inbox, make sure your emails are worth their time. Every email you send should bring value to your audience. Whether it’s content (such as your latest blog post or a new ebook that addresses a common challenge they face) or a discount on a new product, there should be a clear benefit to the subscriber. As you talk about your product or service in email marketing, be sure to position it in a way that highlights the value and benefits it’ll bring to subscribers.

2. With email marketing, remember your subscribers are people.

Too many business owners view their subscribers as a list of faceless email addresses, just waiting to be turned into dollar signs – but subscribers see right through that. As silly as it sounds, it’s important to remember that your subscribers are real people who want to know you have their best interest at heart. Having this mindset before you send an email makes it a lot easier to identify what type of content is valuable to them.

3. Spark interest in your emails.

As you provide your readers with valuable and helpful information, keep it engaging. This will ensure your emails hold the attention of your subscribers, even when they’re busy or just cleaning out their inbox. To stand out, keep your emails concise and relevant to their interests. And if it’s relevant to your audience, feel free to liven up your content with humor, engaging visuals and more.

4. Repurpose content you already wrote.

It’s inevitable in email marketing that writer’s block will strike at some point. But if you’re light on content topics or can’t find the right words to express your thoughts, chances are you already wrote similar content somewhere else. Many business owners already have the content they need – it just might be in a social post, blog article or a 1:1 email you sent to a customer. Look back at previous things you’ve written to see if you can extract anything and re-write it for your email. As long as it’s relevant to your subscribers and what they expect to receive from you, you can reuse it to create your next email.

5. Write to one person instead of one thousand.

Whether you have a few hundred subscribers or a few thousand, the key to writing great emails is to imagine you’re only writing to one. This will ensure your emails feel more like a personal message from a helpful friend instead of a mass email sent from a distant business. To help you understand the specific needs of your target audience, consider creating a customer/client persona. Going through this valuable exercise can help you get a better sense of the individuals to whom you’re sending emails, as well as how you can create a product/service that’s truly aligned with their interests.

6. Get feedback from subscribers

Writing well and using proper grammar are important for establishing credibility with your audience, but at the end of the day, subscribers care most about the content you’re sending them.

If you’re not sure if readers are gaining value from your emails, ask them for feedback and suggestions on what they want to learn about. This will either validate the content you’ve been sending or will give you ideas on what to focus on in the future. In both scenarios, though, you’ll have a clear sense for what to write in your emails.

Plus, it’ll make your subscribers feel valued and trusting of your brand. A win-win!

Now that we’ve covered the basics of writing emails that engage subscribers, let’s dive into the heart of this guide: the emails and templates by downloading the free guide below.

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