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Writing effective e-mail copy isn’t as easy as you think. Like poor message design, poor copywriting that has grammatical errors, misspellings, or the wrong tone can kill your e-mail marketing campaign before it has a chance to get off the ground.

Five key tips to writing effective e-mail copy

• Hook ‘em. Your first couple sentences should contain your main message and “hook” the recipient’s attention so they want to keep on reading. If you sell women’s accessories, for instance, you might lead with: “Is your purse so cluttered that it takes 10 minutes to find the pen at the bottom? Then you’ll want to check out our new lineup of spacious handbags.”

• Back it up. Once the hook is set, spend the rest of the e-mail backing up that message. Don’t wander off in new directions and introduce new messages. The middle and end should reiterate and support the main message and tell people why they should act (click).

• Keep it short. People are easily overwhelmed by too many words-and they already sift through so many e-mails. The key is to give the reader all the details using as few words as possible. Be succinct, choose your words carefully, and don’t just fill up empty space.

• Use normal language. Sometimes when people write they come across as formal and impersonal. Before you write the e-mail, imagine you’re having a conversation with someone about the topic. Then try and write it like you’d say it. Stay away from buzzwords or clichés.

• Show who you are. In an e-mail message, it’s entirely appropriate to let your personality come out. Customers are coming to you because you have something to offer. By letting your personality come through, you are able to create a more human, less corporate message- something readers don’t get from the “big guys.”

Quick Do’s and Don’ts

Keep this list handy when working on your e-mail campaigns.

Do:

• Personalize. If you have the recipient’s first name, you can use software to add it to the top of the newsletter, i.e., “Hi Chris! Here’s your monthly newsletter.

• Create a clear CTA. As discussed above, make it benefit-driven, and easy to find.

• Experiment with link placement. Monthly e-mails are a great way to test the effectiveness of links and content.

• Make it easy to make subscription changes. Provide links in your newsletter for recipients to change their e-mail address and even unsubscribe.

• Use sweepstakes to increase subscribers. You can run an online sweepstakes and require those entering provide an e-mail address and get automatically enrolled in your newsletter program.

• Make HTML and text e-mail content the same. You don’t want to tell one group of subscribers one thing, and another something else.

• Use blogs and social networks (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn) to attract subscribers. Include your newsletter sign up on social networking pages you own.

• Provide a newsletter sign up box on your Web site. Place sign up links in several prominent places on your site.

Don’t:

• Use $$ and !! signs in your subject line. These are red flags for spam filters.

• Use ‘FREE’ in subject lines or copy. Spam, gotcha.

• Send unsolicited messages. Always give people an opportunity to opt-in. Don’t be a spammer.

Filed under: B2B Marketing Blogs, B2B Marketing Ideas, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, digital marketing, email marketing best practices, email marketing mistakes, email marketing services, email marketing software, michael e. williams, web marketing