Email Copywriting Guide [Including Email Copywriting Examples]

Are you struggling to write an effective email copy that truly resonates with your audience? Not to worry you are not alone because there are many marketers out there who are facing the same challenges with their email copywriting. 

The struggle with email copywriting typically comes from an error in your strategy. Two key errors people often make are sending impersonal emails and relying on AI assistants for a quick fix. Using these tools can be helpful, but the results often lack the personal and strategic touch needed to promote real engagement and conversions.

Whether you’re an experienced marketer, a newbie ready to learn, or someone trying to improve their skills, this guide will cover all you need to know to make your email copywriting job valuable.

In this guide, you will learn about how to write an effective email, with examples from popular brands, and helpful tips to write an email copy that converts.

What is Email Copywriting?

Email copywriting is the process of creating text and content for emails, which are often used for marketing goals. Entrepreneurs and small business owners write product emails, promotional emails, welcome emails, follow-up emails, and other sorts of marketing emails to engage new and existing customers.

If you’re a small business owner trying to get started with email copywriting, check out our guide on how to do email marketing for small businesses for a full breakdown.

Email copywriters provide original email content that aligns with a brand’s goals and content marketing strategy. For instance, a sales email aimed at generating conversions for the introduction of a new product is not the same as an email aimed at directing readers to a particular blog post or landing page.

Whatever your goal may be, writing an effective email copy can determine whether the receiver opens or deletes your message or even unsubscribes from your mailing list.

6 Steps on How to Write Effective Email Copywriting

Here are some guidelines on how to write marketing emails that effectively engage your audience and motivate them to take action.

1. Set clear goals

The first thing you need to do before you write an effective email marketing copywriting is to identify the primary goal of your email campaign. You might be aiming to increase conversion rates for new products, drive more traffic to your website, or any other sales or marketing goal. You can also use email marketing to amplify your blogs, videos, or case studies. Find out more on how to maximize email marketing for content distribution.

After you have set your goal, the next thing is to use your email copy to invite people to take a specific action with direct and clear CTA buttons.

2. Stay consistent with your brand voice

The next step to take when creating email copywriting is to keep in mind the specific style of your brand voice. Always make sure to write your content in your brand tone. For instance, the writing style of a technological business with a serious and educational tone will be different from that of a clothes brand with a youthful target demographic and an edgy brand identity.

Consultants, for instance, may need a completely different approach because they have a completely different audience—read email marketing for consultants to understand more. And if you’re in a niche like jewelry or dentistry, check out our specialized email marketing guides for jewelers and dentists.

We also have a detailed article for insurance agencies looking to get into email marketing. 

3. Deliver on your subject line

An important part of email copywriting is writing subject lines that make a promise—and then delivering on it. Write captivating subject lines that highlight how your content, promotional offer, product, or service can benefit the reader, and then follow through on those promises. Making false promises in your subject line can negatively affect your brand’s reputation and reduce your email deliverability.

Always remember to stay conscious of the promises you make in your text and meet those promises. Following through on your promises is always important, but it’s even more important when you’re running a cold email campaign.

These are emails sent to people who aren’t familiar with your brand. When writing cold emails, there’s always the temptation to over promise in your subject line just to get the recipient to open the email. You should never do this because it only makes people lose trust in your brand. 

Cold emails require a slightly different tone and structure to spark interest from people who have never interacted with your brand before. Learn more about cold email copywriting. 

4. Use active language

Another step to follow when creating email copywriting is to use active language; this will help your readers feel connected with your content. Always use actionable language in your copy to bring the reader’s attention to your calls to action. 

Stick to brief sentences in the active voice, and utilize the second person to talk to your reader directly when applicable. You can lose your email subscribers if you write emails with lengthy, complex paragraphs or excessive industry jargon. 

Want to see how your current emails stack up? Conduct an email marketing audit with our checklist and template.

5. Focus on benefits

Create an email copy that emphasizes the benefits your reader will receive from your email, such as lower pricing on a new product, a free trial of a subscription service, or valuable information. Identify the needs of your target audience and the areas in which you can provide solutions for their problems. 

If you’re struggling to write benefit-focused emails, then check your competitors’ email marketing to see how they are marketing similar products. 

6. Optimize your emails

Last but not least, make sure your emails are optimized. You can enhance your email marketing strategy with software that helps customer relationship management. The best CRM tools for email marketing make every step of the process super easy.

Email copywriting tools can also be used to increase deliverability and save time. These tools automate email sequences for tasks like re-engaging old customers, welcoming new subscribers, and following up on abandoned shopping carts. You can also use analytics tools to optimize your emails. Check out how to use Google Analytics with email marketing.

4 Best Email Copywriting Examples

Creating a unique and perfect email copy can be difficult, and email copywriters can frequently need additional inspiration and ideas for their email copy. If you agree, we’ve compiled a list of the best email copywriting examples for you to use as a guide. 

1. PayPal

One of the most effective email marketing strategies to increase your CTR and entice people to take action is to use attention-grabbing words and phrases. You can entice customers to click on your email to find out what discounts or deals you have that they shouldn’t pass up by using phrases like “last chance” or “don’t miss out.”

We like this PayPal example since it’s brief and to the point, capturing your attention with only a few words. You can grab customers’ attention by using phrases like “you’re invited to,” which gives them the impression that you’ve made them an irresistible offer or exclusive bargain. This example shows how powerful simple email copywriting can be.

If you use attention-grabbing language like this, customers will want to know more about your goods and services. This is perfect for B2B companies and e-commerce businesses running email marketing campaigns. 

2. Grammarly

Great email marketing campaigns must capture and keep a user’s interest. Making your emails as brief as possible is one of the best strategies to keep both your existing and future clients interested enough to read the whole email.

Grammarly performed an excellent job of persuading the reader to find out more about their offerings. Their email is brief, direct, and contains a useful call to action (CTA) urging the user to read and learn more about their offerings.

Writing brief, snappy emails like Grammarly is the best option if you want to increase your email’s click-through rate.

3. PartyLite

Asking your customers to take action is crucial since a meaningful call to action (CTA) in your emails can boost your conversion rate by 28%. Using a discount coupon, making a purchase, joining up for a service, learning more about a topic, browsing your products and services, and more can all be included in your call to action.

This PartyLite CTA seems compelling to us. A 20% discount is mentioned in an eye-catching way in their email, along with a meaningful call to action urging visitors to browse their candle and fragrance collection online.

An email marketing campaign with a single, relevant call to action (CTA), such as PartyLite, can significantly boost conversions and sales for your company.

4. Secret Escapes

As previously stated, copywriting for email marketing is a great means of establishing a connection with and creating personalized messaging for your target audience.

These personalized emails are ideal for connecting with your target audience’s interests and persuading them to click on your link in order to find out more about your goods and services they might like. Actually, you can increase your open rate by 41.8% by sending personalized emails.

This Secret Escapes example effectively offers a customized email by making suggestions based on the reader’s previous searches or purchases.

Users will be far more inclined to open your emails and go over the goods and services you offer if you include personalized messaging in them. Personalization is a major element of effective email copywriting. And it’s easier to do this when you segment your email list. This will increase your sales. 

Click here to learn more about how email segmentation improves personalization and open rates.

5. Hersheypark

You must include a lot of photographs in your emails because visual information receives 94% more views than text-only content. You can make sure that your emails are more than just text messages by including visually appealing images and gifs.

Your customer will be able to understand the contents and finish your email if you use visuals to capture and hold their attention.

The use of numerous photos in Hersheypark’s marketing emails is excellent. Their emails contain a lot of eye-catching, colorful visuals and infographics that effectively break up the content.

You can make your emails vibrant and eye-catching by combining text with photos, which can raise your CTR and conversions.

Tips to write an email copy that converts

You need to plan strategically and pay attention to certain details when writing an email copy that converts. Here are some things to think about when writing an effective email copy.

• Specify the purpose of your email.
• Select a framework for copywriting.
• Know your target market.
• Create a conversational email copy.
• Create captivating subject lines.
• Make use of preheader texts.
• Your email copy should be brief and relevant.
• In the introduction, introduce yourself.
• Tell a story.
• Make the copy easy to read.

And remember: if you don’t yet have a website, that’s not the end. Learn how to run email marketing without a website.