Email copywriting is a crucial skill for any email marketer who wants to connect with their audience, deliver value, and drive action. However, writing effective and engaging emails is not as easy as it sounds. There are many common email copywriting mistakes that can ruin your chances of getting your message across, such as:
Your subject line is the first thing your subscribers see in their inbox, and it determines whether they will open your email or not. Therefore, you need to make sure your subject line is clear, specific, and relevant to your audience. Avoid using vague or generic phrases like "Update", "Reminder", or "News". Instead, use words that convey urgency, curiosity, or benefit. For example, instead of "Update: New Features", you could write "How to Use Our New Features to Save Time and Money".
Your subject line has ONE JOB - to get your subscribers to open your email! Make sure it sparks interest, but is also relevant to your message. Here are a few tips: 1. Write the email body first. Then, take the big idea and condense it down to one eye-catching phrase. BOOM. Subject line written. 2. Use personalization! Your headline will grab more attention if it includes the reader's first name. But don't do this all the time or it'll get real creepy real fast. 3. Avoid phrases like Sale, Buy Now, Hot Deals, etc. These get deleted without being read, and they trigger the dreaded spam filter. Unless you like landing in the spam folder, resist the temptation.
And avoid using spammy "RE:" or "FWD:" in the subject line. It's not a fun tactic. It's purposefully misleading which can land you in hot water.
A lot of "best practices" will depend on your audience and industry. Testing subject lines is an easy way to get good insights on what your audience prefers. Focus on making the subject line relevant to the content of the email itself. Your goal is to get the right people to open your email and then give them a reason to have opened it. And don't forget about checking what percentage of your audience is on mobile. If so, you'll want to keep subject lines short to avoid (unfortunate) truncation.
Another common email copywriting mistake is writing too much or too little content in your email body. Writing too much can overwhelm your readers and make them lose interest or skip important information. Writing too little can leave your readers confused or unsatisfied. The ideal length of your email depends on your goal, your audience, and your offer. However, a general rule of thumb is to keep your email concise, focused, and easy to scan. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, subheadings, and white space to break up your text and highlight your key points.
Overall length of your email really depends on the subject and your audience. Just keep in mind: [1] Gmail clips email with a size greater than 102kb. [2] Use shorter paragraphs and sentences for mobile users. What looks like three lines on your desktop could become two scrolls on a mobile. [3] Use transitions and open loops between sections. This leads users to the next part of the email, naturally.
Take a quick look (don't overthink it) at any text blocks to determine if any of your paragraphs are short enough to keep a reasonably engaged reader going. Offer visual breaks like paragraph breaks, numbers, question marks, bullet points, and (tasteful) emojis—these can be visual anchors for your reader in a sea of words.
Understanding your audience's preference on legnth is key. Conduct A/B tests with different lengths and formats to see what resonates best with them. Some segments might prefer detailed, informative content, while others may engage more with concise, to-the-point messages.
The call to action (CTA) is the most important part of your email, as it tells your readers what you want them to do next. Whether you want them to click a link, reply to your email, sign up for a webinar, or buy a product, you need to make your CTA clear, compelling, and visible. Forgetting the CTA or hiding it in a long paragraph can reduce your conversions and frustrate your readers. Therefore, you need to make sure your CTA stands out with a contrasting color, a large font, and an action-oriented phrase. For example, instead of "Click here to learn more", you could write "Claim Your Free Trial Now".
Contextually text on call-to-action buttons are much more helpful for screen readers, too, which will make your email more accessible, opening up the audience who will be able to interact and engage with it.
The first things you decide when crafting email strategy are: who are we sending to, and what do we want them to do? Your CTA should be the first thing you write. Make it clear and easy for your reader to do what you want them to do.
Repeating the same CTA throughout is important too. As more and more people skim read, it’s essential to have a CTA NOT just at the end. Plus…make sure you don’t have too many different CTAs - options can be a decision killers! An overwhelm of options will make it difficult for the reader to take ANY action.
The tone and voice of your email copywriting are essential for creating a connection with your readers and expressing your brand personality. However, many email marketers ignore the tone and voice of their emails and end up sounding boring, robotic, or inappropriate. To avoid this mistake, you need to consider who you are writing to, what you are writing about, and how you want your readers to feel. Then, you need to use words, phrases, and punctuation that match your tone and voice. For example, if you are writing to a friendly and casual audience, you could use contractions, slang, and emojis. If you are writing to a professional and formal audience, you could use more formal language and avoid exclamation marks.
You should also consider changing the tone and voice depending on the format of your email. Is it promotional? Or are you sending it as if it was "from" someone in your org? The latter would benefit from sounding like it was from an actual human being using more conversational language—even in the subject line.
Grammar or spelling errors are one of the most common and avoidable email copywriting mistakes that can damage your credibility and trustworthiness. Even if you have a great subject line, a compelling CTA, and a suitable tone and voice, a single typo or grammatical mistake can ruin your impression and distract your readers from your message. Therefore, you need to proofread your email carefully before sending it and use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway to check for errors and improve your readability.
By avoiding these common email copywriting mistakes, you can improve your email marketing performance and achieve your goals. Remember, email copywriting is not a one-size-fits-all skill, but a craft that requires practice, testing, and feedback. So, keep learning, experimenting, and refining your email copywriting skills and watch your results improve.
While it's important to avoid grammar or spelling errors, I've discovered that occasionally playing with words in a creative way adds to my charm and helps me stand out from the crowd. For example: - I opt for "mahhhney" instead of the standard "money". - I stretch out "awesome" to "awesomeeeeeee" to really hammer home just how impressive something is. Using these playful tweaks sparingly can infuse your messages with personality and make them more memorable.
A typo or grammar mistake in a personal email won't ruin the message for me. However, having them in bulk emails, newsletters, or event invitations is a deal-breaker. These are the types of messages that go through multiple pairs of eyes, and one of them should be of a proofreader, whether you're a native speaker or not. Grammar and spelling mistakes mean the people responsible for the message didn't spend enough time crafting it. Or, even worse, they don't care about the subscribers enough. The simplest solution is to check the email copy with tools designed for that purpose. Frankly, I wouldn't trust generic AI tools as they are also prone to making mistakes.
Besides proofreading your email, you should also send it to yourself and review it on your computer and phone as well as different email programs, if possible. Each may show different formatting, some which you may be able to change. Check that all of the links work for copy as well as images and that social media icons link to the right accounts.
We can get so involved in the copywriting process we forget the person on the other end who will be reading what you've written. Use easy to understand words and phrases. For example "use" instead of "utilize". And keep sentences short and succinct. Run on sentences will lose the reader's attentions fast. I often read what I've written out aloud to help me hear my words. If it doesn't sound good, I'll rewrite. Finally, remember to use less "we" statements and more "you" statements. The reader doesn't care when they read "we're so excited to launch x". What will the reader be able to do with X and focus on the value and benefits for the reader.
I agree with all of the above pointers but I do want to ad that the graphics of the email should be clean and simple with not too much going on. The more graphics in email marketing the less prone people are to reading it and have a shorter concentration span of actually clicking to the website.
Remember the importance of segmentation and personalization in your email campaigns. Tailoring your messages to specific audience segments will significantly improve engagement rates. Hubspot released a study that showed personalized call-to-actions performed better than their default counterparts. Start with generic, but then alter it so that you can resonate deeper with segments of your audience.