After receiving a lot of positive feedback on my recent presentation at the Wanneroo Business Association on ‘How to write engaging emails that sell’ I thought I’d create a blog post summarising the key points.
If you haven’t already downloaded the WBA session, you can watch the full masterclass here.
WATCH THE MASTERCLASS ON HOW TO WRITE ENGAGING EMAILS THAT SELL
Because it was quite an in-depth class, I have broken this blog up into two parts, otherwise, it’d be a little long.
This is Part One of How to Write Engaging Emails that Sell – which includes email marketing examples.
Why is email marketing so important?
Put simply, having your customers’, or potential customers’ email address is like gold. It’s much more valuable than a ‘like’ on Facebook or a ‘follow’ on insta.
Why?
Because you have control over that data. As we learned last year, Facebook can decide to shut down business accounts overnight, and Instagram has also been known to block or delete accounts at the drop of a hat.
Don’t run the risk of losing thousands of followers overnight – make sure you are collecting their emails from day one. And if you don’t already have an email marketing list, it’s not too late to start.
TOP TIP: With email marketing lists, quality is better than quantity. It’s better to have a list 500 long with a very engaged audience who read every email you send, than a list of 10,000 people who never open your emails. So don’t worry if you don’t yet have many subscribers!
How can I get more email subscribers?
One of the best ways to grow your email marketing list is by giving away something of value for free, in exchange for the person’s email address (and usually their first name).
This is known as a “lead magnet” – as in following a lead, not the metal! The lead magnet attracts people to you whom you can follow up with.
The key here is that the lead magnet needs to be something of HIGH value. This is because the subscriber who downloads the content has to be thrilled by it. You want them to think, “If this is what they are giving away for free, what kind of service/product will I get if I pay?”
Here are some examples of good lead magnets and how they could be implemented into different industries:
- Webinar: How to recruit in a tough market (created by a recruiter)
- Templates: Canva templates for Instagram (designed by a graphic designer)
- Product samples: Free beauty products (companies like Kiehl’s do this well)
- Audits: Website or SEO checks (run by a website designer)
- Challenges: 3-day challenge to improve your money mindset (perfect for a money mindset coach)
- Spreadsheet template: Budget planner to help you break away from the 9-to-5 (we’ve created something like this ourselves here!)
Attracting leads is at the very top of the sales marketing funnel – but how can we nurture these leads into sales?
Read this: The benefits of giving away advice for free.
Consider your ideal client
With every email you craft, you need to be writing it with your ideal client in mind. When they receive your email, you want them to feel as though you wrote the email to them personally.
The key to converting leads into sales is by understanding your ideal client – and this goes much deeper than simply saying it’s a ‘woman who is 35’.
Consider what:
- Do they do for work?
- Are their external pain points?
- Are their internal pain points?
- Does your ideal client do with their time? (Hobbies / interests)
- Do they want to achieve?
For example, if you are a swimwear label, your emails might be directed at ‘Becky’, a 35-year-old woman with two children who is struggling to find a swimsuit that fits. She has had low self-confidence since having her second baby and because she loves to spend time at the beach, this is a problem. The customer wants something she feels comfortable in and won’t fall out of when her two-year-old pulls on its straps. She wants to feel confident and happy in a new swimsuit.
Can you see how writing to Becky will be much more targeted than writing to a generic woman who wants to buy a new swimsuit?
The importance of subject lines
Once you have defined your ideal customer (and you can segment your audience and have different ideal customers you decide to target, depending on the campaign), it’s time to think about your emails.
The subject line is the most important part of your email because, according to Hubspot, more than 300 billion business and consumer emails are sent and received each DAY. You need to stand out in this noise.
How to write engaging emails? Write engaging subject lines!
The aim of your subject line is to make the reader CLICK and stop scrolling through their inbox when they come across your email. Obviously, if they don’t click on your email then whatever you have to say inside will be a waste of time.
While it’s tempting to write the subject line first, I recommend writing the email body text and then coming back to the subject line. This will give you a clearer understanding of what it is you’re trying to say.
Writing subject lines is a lot harder than you think, as they need to say a lot in a few short words and encourage the reader to take action.
One way to find the right subject line is by pulling up your written email and removing its adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, and prepositions. Replace phrases with just one word. This is a particularly great exercise if you’re sending an email about a recent blog post.
For example, For this blog post: The importance of risk-taking in business, I could come up with the following subject lines:
- Why you need to stop being a scaredy-cat in your business
- Business struggling in COVID? Read this.
- Not growing your business? This could be what it’s missing…
- The push you need to take your business to the next level
Can you see how these subject lines are punchy and would want to make the ideal client (a struggling small business owner) click on the email?
Consider using an emoji in your subject line too – according to Experian, 56% of brands using emojis in subject lines had higher open rates.
Another relevant blog post: What not to do when crafting an e-newsletter.
Tips for writing personally
Sitting down to write an email to potentially hundreds, or thousands, of people, seems like a very impersonal experience.
So how can we make it personal?
One top tip I got from my business coach, Steph Gorton, is to send out a ‘nine-word email’.
This is when you simply ask your audience a question, with the strategy being to start a conversation with them. Conversations lead to conversions, so the earlier you can start engaging in active conversations with your audience, the better!
For example, you could say:
Subject: Want to join us at this workshop?
Body: Hey <name>, I’m running a lead generation workshop for startup businesses in Perth in March. Would you like to join us?
Or you might write:
Subject: Want to work with me?
Body: Hey <name>, I’m looking for four coaches who want to get more clients in the next 30 days – are you interested in working together?
Can you see how these emails are short and easy to read, allowing the recipient to digest it and quickly tap out a reply? This can be a very effective way to get a conversation started!
TOP TIP: If you have a large email list, just send these types of emails to 10-20 people a week so you can handle replies and the conversations that come with them. Because people WILL reply!
Personalising your emails
Some other simple ways to personalise is to look at the data behind your emails and target subscribers based on:
- Their location
- Interests in certain products
- Participation in your events
- Content downloads
- Their position on the customer journey
- How much money they spend on your products or services
For example, if they regularly shop with you, you might want to reward them with a discount voucher or a freebie as a thank you.
Everyone loves to feel special, so by personalising your emails, you’ll give your recipient a real buzz.
Money mindset coach, Denise Duffield-Thomas, did this brilliantly in her recent launch, sending all subscribers interested in her course a personalised video. We’re talking thousands of people – the videos took two weeks to record! But hey, it worked – it was a $1.5 million launch!
I hope this blog post gives you enough info to get started on your email marketing… and stay tuned for next week for Part 2 of How to Write Engaging Emails that Sell, where I’ll deep dive into some more tips.
In the meantime, you can watch the replay of the masterclass here.
