Email Marketing Tutorial: How To Write Emails That DOUBLE Conversions

Key Takeaways

as a copywriter there is nothing worse than spending hours on an email marketing campaign only to find out that it landed in the promotions folder or worse triggered the spam police keep watching to learn my seven tips to massively improve conversions by actually making it to the inbox [Music] hey guys it's Alex and this week I want to talk about email marketing now writing email sequences and promotional campaigns is one of my favorite things to do as a copywriter but lately I've been finding it harder and harder to get my emails in to my audiences primary inbox heaven forbid people who actually signed up to get emails for me should actually get them am i right now when we hear the word spam it's really easy to think about all those emails we get about that magical blue pill or that contest you never entered or that long-lost relative who has an inheritance of 1 million dollars to send you or worse those phishing emails with sketchy files viruses and links meant to grab your data no I am NOT talking about those scammers and spammers as far as I'm concerned those scum of the earth bottom feeders can put their crappy emails where the Sun don't shine if you catch my drift what I'm talking about is when legit emails written by legit brands that legit people actually opted in to receive land in the spam folder or a more common phenomenon Google's promotions tab with 1.5 billion with a B people around the world using Gmail the promotion is a real doozy I often have my students yes the people who actually paid to get email communication from me tell me that they're missing my emails with important program information because they are landing in Gmail's good old promotions tab gmail has crazy tight spam restrictions with more than 10 million spam and malicious emails blocked every single minute by their automated machine learning filters that's crazy right and if I'm being honest I do love this when I think about my grandma checking her email and getting easily confused by sketchy emails from scammers trying to steal her information so while I am very glad that Gmail is protecting us all still a whopping 68% of emails that don't land in the spam folder still end up in the promotions tab and that's kind of a bummer if you're the one sending those emails right when I launched my copywriter coaching program the coffee posse Launchpad I spent hours navigating email deliverability tools to ensure that my emails had the best chance of in my subscribers inboxes those of you who are on my newsletter know that I only write to you when I have a new video up or when I have new information or news to share with you that'll take your copywriting game to the next level but still the digital powers that be still scrutinized by every single word like it's 1984 George Orwell's 1984 so if you are on my list do me a favor and the next time you get an email from me that lands in your promotions tab just drag and drop that over to the primary folder to make sure you don't miss any more of my emails and if you two are struggling with email deliverability in the day of stricter and stricter inbox filters you are in the right place now as a copywriter you might be wondering alright what's this got to do with me well let me paint you a picture let's say you start working with a client who is a list of 10,000 subscribers that client asks you to write an email campaign selling their new amazing program to their list awesome right you get to work spending hours writing the most amazing emails that'll sell like crazy paths you send those emails to your clients your client then loads those emails into their email software pushes send and nobody buys who do you think they're gonna come to for an explanation the truth is the average business owner does not properly track their deliverability or senders for so as far as it looks to them your emails just suck and the reality could be a totally different story out of that list of 10,000 chances are only 77% of those emails were ever delivered that is the average deliverability rate so that list of 10,000 is really more like 7700 it's worse than taxes and as I mentioned earlier you have a 68% chance of that email landing in the promotions tab but that number is a lot higher if that email is selling something which it is in this scenario it's selling your clients new program so let's assume it will go to the promotions tab if you're not optimizing your copy based on the 7 tips I'm sharing in today's video it gets worse the read rate of emails that land in the promotions tab is 19.2% so that means that maybe if you're lucky one thousand four hundred and the eight people will actually open and read your email but wait we're not done yet the average click-through rate on email is 2.5 percent which means the number of people who clip that email and saw your clients new program is 37 37 people so yeah even though as a copywriter email deliverability isn't your job per se paying attention to the ways you can boost the number of people who actually see your emails it's going to make you look a lot better as a copywriter and while there is a lot of techy stuff that your client can do to boost livor ability like email authentication regular list maintenance and smart segmentation let's talk about the stuff you can control and that is how you write your subject lines and email copy small tweaks and messaging and formatting can play a huge role in the success of your campaign here's a quick snapshot of what happens when an email doesn't perform as well in terms of deliverability my open rate on one of my recent content emails was nearly cut in half due to poor deliverability so for more tutorials on how to write copy that both connects and converts and makes you look really really good click subscribe below to join the global copy posse I release a new video every single week to help copywriters and entrepreneurs start and scale their business and now to answer your question what can I do as a copywriter to avoid the spam or promotions folder well a lot actually Internet service providers or ISPs not only keep an eye on vocabulary but context formatting and engagement so in this video I'm sharing 7 email marketing tips copywriters can do to massively improve conversions and boost revenue so let's start with the most obvious tip of them all tip number one avoid spam trigger words you'd be surprised by how many copywriters are just simply not aware that they could be using massive amounts of spam trigger words in their email copy and the list of common spam words has gotten longer and longer over recent years which can make things really really tricky on top of the usual suspects like cash bonus free sale make money you now also have words like amazing opportunity and freedom getting played by the Robocop marketing sources like HubSpot are always updating their list of words and phrases to avoid so it's good to keep those lists handy as you're composing emails for yourself or for your client and I will share links to those resources in the description below and trust me guys I know as a copywriter and creative flow it can be really really hard to come up with alternative words and phrases on the fly so when I write emails I tend to write what I want to say first and then I go back and cross-reference that with the spam words and then update my copy accordingly it is time-consuming but trust me it is well worth it and the more you write the more you'll naturally learn which words to avoid now if only the rules ended there unfortunately it's not as simple and straightforward as just omitting or replacing a word here and there which brings us to tip number two avoid spammy formatting because half the time it's not so much about what you say but how you say it is PS it becomes so sophisticated that they can now assess the context of your email copy some types of formatting our automatic red flag like exclamation marks and non emoji symbols and multicolored fonts and varying font size or types which will likely land you straight in the junk folder also make sure to proofread your email so that you don't have an overload of punctuation in general using too many commas or breaking up a longer sentence with a colon or a dot dot dot can often get you into trouble once you start writing emails on a more regular basis I highly recommend you invest in an email tool like block or send forensics to see which words and phrases could be triggering the spam filter now trust me I wish there was a straightforward guide of the do's and don'ts when it comes to formatting but unfortunately the best way to know is to use your best judgment and then test here's a quick side-by-side comparison of one of my sales emails for my launch which I ran through send forensics several times before sending it out to my list the one on the left was my first test the one on the right was the exact same email after a few rounds of tweaks and optimization crazy right the first one had a 51% deliverability and after a few fixes it went up to over 82% so depending on the size of your list this can be a huge needle mover and it was for me alright moving on to tip number three keep your subject lines simple the previous two rules also apply to your subject lines be very mindful about using spam trigger words and any funky characters that will look shifty to a robot while a great subject line should include a good hook and you've oke enough curiosity to compel your subscribers to click open it's important that you also keep it concise and set the right expectations for your email content 47% of emails are discarded based on the subject line alone that's nearly half this could absolutely be killing your engagement rate and telling ISPs that what you're sending is just not read worthy higher open rates can bump up your deliverability due to high engagement and therefore reduce the chances of your email ending up in the spam folder or the promotions tab due to inactivity but whatever you do do not trick people into opening your emails because high opens and low clicks also won't do you any favors so that's a hard no guys for click Beatty and misleading subject lines more than half of consumers reported that they have felt tricked into opening a promotional email so strike a balance between curiosity and relevancy and you are good to go and if you want some tips on how to write killer subject lines you can check out that video next I'll be sure to share it at the end of this video alright now tip number four write friendly this is the most important tip of all guys on top of all that formatting stuff that I just mentioned the best way to write an email is to avoid sounding like a marketer a sure way to do that is to write as if you're talking to a friend or telling a real-life story to someone you actually care about in other words write like a human this will make your email so much more approachable and relevant personalities like Marie Forleo Jay Klaus and Noah Kagan are great examples of people who write their emails as if they're having a conversation with a friend and the same rule applies even if you're representing a brand or a business on that note this doesn't mean you should go all Jane Austen on your emailing but if the story does call for a longer email do break it up into multiple paragraphs to make it easier to read the more engaged your readers are with your emails the more likely you'll end up in their inbox and past behavior impacts future deliverability it's as simple as that remember emails to friends have a hundred percent open rate so write as if you're writing to a friend alright tip number five I've stay relevant surveys have shown that 60% of email users will mark a sender as spam if they receive too many or too many irrelevant emails from them not to mention if your subscriber considers your email content is irrelevant they'll likely be less likely to respond to your future campaigns so the next time you're writing or conceptualizing your email content consider why you're sending the email how it's relevant to the brand and how your message can add value to your subscribers life the number-one rule I tell my students when writing campaigns is to always have a reason why to email whether it be to share a new piece of content release a new product or add a new bonus or discount during a sales campaign don't send an email just for the sake of cadence your subscriber is not gonna be impressed by unnecessary reminders check in the repeated content without purpose or something new to share so be strategic with your email marketing and plan the angles of your campaigns in advance all right tip number 6 manage expectations when you're writing to a new lead who just opted in one of your first and doctrine ation emails should set expectations around the kind of content they will be receiving from you and the frequency that you'll be emailing them for example if your lead will be included in your weekly newsletters then let them know I send an email to my global Posse every single Wednesday to let them know that a new video is up and of course I let them know when new programs and courses are available in the copy posse Academy another important practice is to be consistent in your language your personality and even the layout or framework of your emails familiarity and consistency go a long way in fostering trust with your audience and that brings me to tip number 7 aim to engage first the most important thing to remember with your email marketing is that your primary goal is to get your reader to engage with your email 9 out of 10 times that means clicking a link in the email but sometimes it's to get them to reply or take some other form of action don't worry so much about closing the sale right there in the email because one that's a spam word minefield and 2 your on-site sales copy can do the converting for you so when writing emails think first about how to make them engage interesting and clique worthy use graphics and buttons or even a gift for an emoji if that is how you'd like to communicate I'm a huge fan of emojis but be careful not to use too many images or hyperlinks in your emails because yes you guessed it spam alert so that wraps up my list of seven things you can do as a copywriter to make sure your emails actually arrive in the inbox therefore boosting conversions and revenue give me a thumbs up below if you found this video helpful next up check out my video on how to write killer subject lines you can watch that right here as always thank you so much for watching and subscribing enjoy the rest of your week I'll be back next week with a brand new video until then I'm Alex ciao for now [Music]