Keys to Writing Meaningful Email Content

By Tectonic’s Salesforce Marketing Consultant, Shannan Hearne

Email marketing remains a powerful tool for businesses to engage with their prospects and customers. Writing meaningful email content takes time and practice. It’s essential to recognize that your recipients and subscribers face a constant barrage of emails. The challenge becomes making your email stand out in the inbox, prompt subscribers to open, read, and respond to your desired Call to Action.

Here are proven methods to enhance the interest, effectiveness, and credibility of your emails:

Stay Relevant:

Address the needs and intentions of your audience. Shift the focus from the sale to what the customer truly is interested in. Avoid post transactional emails offering the shoes they just purchased in an additional color. Consider utilizing dynamic content to further personalize the content delivered to each recipient.

Set a Content Hierarchy:

Ensure the main message is immediately visible and clearly the primary purpose of the email. Organize content to prioritize important information, guiding the reader on the next steps you hope they will take. Personally I prefer a single email with a couple of pieces of information over two emails, but ensure the most important information is at the top and the secondary information is relevant to the same segment you intend to target with the email message.

Tell a Story:

Craft a compelling narrative reflecting your brand’s core values. Consider behind-the-scenes insights, brand stories, or product origins. With a little creativity it is not hard to deliver your primary message while sharing something of interest to the reader. Sending an email about holiday shopping? Share something happening at your company over the holiday. Sending an email about an upcoming weather event? Share a picture of your staff dealing with the same sleet/snow/rain/hail. Tell a story while delivering your primary message. Stay relevant AND human. Do not have ChatGPT or another content generator write your final message. These are valuable tools but not yet intelligent enough to keep your message relevant or human.

Keep it Simple:

Focus each email on a single message or topic. Streamline the presentation, and if multiple viewpoints are necessary, explore ways to simplify or consider sending additional messages. Yet I maintain one email is always better than two as stated above when an option. If you receive emails from Salesforce they are a great example. I worked with the team that sends their webinar announcement emails for a time, and we developed a method for always adding a second offer or CTA that was relevant because it spoke to the same segment, which over time greatly reduces the volume of emails being sent and helps to prevent email fatigue. Lengthy pieces of information can be linked to a landing page in the email keeping the email smaller but providing access to “the rest of the story”.

Trim it Back and Clean it Up:

Edit your email copy for readability and conciseness. Trim down unnecessary content without losing impact. Ensure key messages are visible and clear at a glance for the readers who are too busy to read the whole item word for word. There are always sentences and paragraphs with extra words that can be removed. Marketers can’t help but use lots of descriptive words. They aren’t always necessary. Writing meaningful email content doesn’t necessarily mean verbose.

Grab Their Attention:

Use clear and targeted subject lines with fewer than 50 characters for higher open rates. Subject lines are often truncated, so make them attention-grabbing. Be sure to avoid spam trigger words. Even if the entire message is about a free offer, free is a word that often gets your email stopped by a spam blocker before the recipient even gets a chance to have their attention grabbed. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. What would make you open the email?

Include a Preheader:

Craft a preheader that complements the subject line. Use it as a call to action or a brief summary of the email content, limited to about 100 characters. Email platforms that show preheader content often get better open results for emails that have a preheader which further encourages the recipient to open and read the email.

Save Time with AI:

Incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) for personalization, segmentation, and other tasks at scale. AI tools can streamline processes, saving time and costs. NOTE: This does not mean AI writing your emails. When you utilize built in AI tools like Salesforce’s Einstein to control optimal send times, add relevant dynamic content, and enhance email personalization you are saving time and money while improving the email recipient’s experience.

Drive Results with a Strong CTA:

Make your call to action specific, relevant, and compelling. Provide an irresistible reason for customers to click through and take action promptly. Register now, click here, sign up, are all common CTA button text we use. The content leading up to the CTA button must give an enticing reason for the reader to click your CTA. Is there a line of text that could also be hyperlinked to your CTA?

Test. Test. Test Again:

Experiment with different approaches, including variables in the preheader, body, and content blocks. Utilize A/B testing to understand subscriber responses and refine your strategy. My mantra is email is free real estate to test, learn, and improve the messages you send. Don’t waste it. Some companies have whole teams of analytics specialists that hypothesize and determine the testing variable of every email.

By adhering to these email content tips, you can create emails that are engaging, effective, and eagerly anticipated by your readers. Whether focusing on relevance, storytelling, simplicity, or testing, these strategies will highlight the interest, effectiveness, and trustworthiness of your brand. Start crafting those emails and monitor their success.

If you are struggling with the challenge of writing meaningful email content, Tectonic consultants can help. Contact us today.