High-Tech Communicator

9 Best Practices for Writing Email Copy

When it comes to sending permission-based marketing messages, you can’t beat email. According to the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, 77 percent of customers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email. 

In my last post, I talked about how to get people to open your message by optimizing your subject line. Here I’ll talk about best practices for writing your message copy.

The most important factor to keep in mind when writing email-message copy is that you have two to five seconds to capture someone’s interest once they open your email.

The following best practices will help you get the word out — fast.

1. Have a clear, narrow purpose. With a two-to-five second deadline, you can’t sell your product or company. All you can do is sell your reader on taking a single step. In most cases, that step will be to click through to one offer — which you should carefully select based on where your reader is in the buying process. For example, an email designed to promote early stage, brand awareness might offer a thought-leadership or educational white paper or eBook. The email copy itself should simply describe how your reader will benefit from downloading the offer.
2. Let your landing page and your offer do your heavy lifting. The sole purpose of your email should be to get someone to your offer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t give people instructions or make your case. You just have to leave your heavy lifting to your landing page and the offer itself.  Use your landing page to provide a more lengthy description of your offer as well as any technical aspects of fulfilling your offer. For example, the landing page is where you should ask people to register for your webinar or download a white paper offer. The offer itself will do the work of educating your reader or providing useful information designed to advance your customer through the buying cycle.
3. Keep your body copy short. Your body copy should be no more than 200 words — although some studies have shown that copy half that long may be even better.
4. Front load the email with the benefits of your offer and the call to action. An increasing number of subscribers will be reading your message on their mobile device. With the smaller screen size, you’ll want to make sure they see the good stuff. To that end, your headline should contain the unique selling point of your offer — whether that’s the key information they’ll learn by reading your white paper or an exclusive discount. You should also place a link to your call to action within the first paragraph. I work with one client that routinely includes both the headline and the call to action in the first line of their email.
5. Use second person.  People are accustomed to email as a very personal communication medium. Your tone should be that of a conversation that provides useful information. Don’t do a direct sales pitch.  
6. Load up on benefits. Mention one benefit for every feature or function of your offer that you mention.
7. Break up your copy. To make your copy as easy to read as possible, use short paragraphs and bullet points to break up text. I typically use bullet points when describing the benefits of the offer. While this is important for emails of any type, it’s even more important when people read email on their mobile devices.  
8. Get consensus. Nothing is as credible as other customers. Where possible, put social proof in your email copy by getting a nice quote from a customer. If that quote includes quantitative results, even better.
9. Use personalization. Use automated personalization to address the email to the particular reader.

In the third part of this series, I’ll give you tips for creating a compelling call to action.

What are other ways you’ve improved your email copy?

How to Write Content for Mobile Devices

In part one of this two-part series, I talked about why your marketing content needs to be different on mobile devices. In this second part, I address how to write content that will be effective on these devices.

As I mentioned last time, the experience of reading on mobile devices is different from that of a desktop, laptop, or tablet device for three reasons: mobile users are more likely to be interrupted, they’re more likely to be multitasking, and the small screen size means that reading comprehension plummets.

So how do you create content that will have an impact under these circumstances? First, consider the types of content that will be most compelling to smartphone users. You can always ask people what they want. But as a rule of thumb, some types of content that are better suited to mobile include non-editorial content, such as data or an app like a specialty calculator. In terms of written content, start with news content or any content that’s constantly updated.

Next, when you write your content, follow these 9 tips:

1. Less is best. Use shorter sentences. Get rid of any unnecessary words or images. Avoid long pages that require a lot of scrolling.
2. Get to the point fast. State the most useful, relevant information at the start.
3. Do one thing at a time. Put only one idea on each page.
4. State clear goals. Make clear what action you’d like the reader to take — whether that’s sharing your content or signing up for your mailing list.
5. Make text scannable. Break up text into small chunks or paragraphs. This will add white space between text, making it easier to read and scan. Bulleted lists will make information even more scannable.
6. Grab the reader. Use sensory words, such as feel, savor, scent, that paint a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
7. 7.       Use contractions and abbreviations.
8. Summarize. When presenting longer pieces, create an executive summary of the content with a link that they can read later on a tablet, laptop or PDF.
9. Think multiple platforms. Make it easy to move content cross platform. For example, by adding a prominent “email this” link.

What are additional tips you’ve discovered for creating and writing content that works on mobile devices?

Marketing on Mobile: Why is this Platform Different?

As more and more people adopt smartphones, B2B content marketers are thinking about how to bring their content to mobile users. It’s no wonder. comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, reported that 55 percent of mobile users in the U.S., 129.4 million people, owned smartphones during the three months ending in January 2013 — a seven percent increase since October.

But clearly, you can’t simply take your existing marketing content and move it to a mobile device. You need to create new content in a format best suited to the strengths and limitations of this medium.

In this two-part series on writing content for mobile devices, I’ll talk first about why the experience of reading content is different on mobile. In part two, I’ll discuss ways to write content to better suit mobile devices.

Why is Mobile Different?

When you do any type of writing, it’s always a good idea to put yourself in the shoes of your reader. The experience of reading on a mobile device is different than reading on a standard desktop, laptop or tablet for three reasons: 

• Constant interruption. When you’re at a computer, people are more likely to assume you’re working and leave you alone. If you’re looking at a smartphone in a room filled with people, there’s a greater chance you’ll be interrupted.
• Multitasking. There’s a much greater chance your reader is multitasking with their smartphone. For example, a dad might be looking up football scores on his smartphone while waiting for his daughter’s chorus performance to begin; a manager may check for text messages or emails while waiting online at the Starbucks drive through.
• Small screen size.The most significant difference between desktop machines and smartphones is the size of the screen. Looking at a smaller screen is more likely to cause eye strain. More importantly, it’s harder to retain information and comprehension is lower on these screens.

Why Small Screens Reduce Comprehension

According to research presented in the book “Mobile Usability” by Jakob Nielsen and Raluca Budiu, it’s 108 percent more difficult to understand information when reading from a mobile screen compared to reading on a desktop screen. Comprehension suffers for two reasons:

• Less visible context. The less you can see, the more you have to remember when you’re trying to understand anything that’s not fully explained within the viewable space. Because human short-term memory is notoriously weak, less context translates into lower comprehension.
• More scrolling. Mobile users have to scroll around more to see other parts of the content rather than simply glancing at the text. Scrolling takes more time, which degrades memory. It also diverts attention from the problem at hand to locating the appropriate part of the page. Additionally, you need to find your previous place on the page.

In the second part of this series, I’ll present ways to write content to address these issues.

What other factors contribute to a mobile screen making content marketing more challenging on a mobile device?