A Digital Copywriter's Guide toEmail Marketing

Before there was social media (1997), texting (1993), or even the World Wide Web (1989), a 30-year-old electrical engineer named Ray Tomlinson invented email. The first email was sent by Ray in 1971.

We’ve come a long way since then.

Now, an incredible 333.2 billion emails are sent and received worldwide every day by more than 4 billion email users. Of course, not all of these emails fall under the umbrella of email marketing. Some are personal emails between individuals.

But email marketing is alive and well. In fact, it’s thriving.

Studies show that consumers like receiving email. They open it at their desk, in the car, from wherever in the world they are. They read it. They engage with it. They act on it.

Companies like email marketing — and continue using it — because it works.

Email marketing allows companies to communicate with their audience — their list — on their own terms. They aren’t at the mercy of social media platforms with their ever-changing algorithms and policies.

And email is more cost effective and immediate than physical mail.

It’s easy to write and send a simple email.

Good email marketing, on the other hand, requires strategy and compelling, persuasive copy.

Companies need digital copywriters who know email marketing to help them get the maximum benefit from this powerful marketing channel.

They need you.

Email Marketing Statistics

Email marketing generated $7.5 billion of revenue in 2020, and Statista forecasts that number will grow to $17.9 billion per year by 2027.

This statistics report by HubSpot can help you see why email has such strong growth projections:

• Email generates $42 for every $1 spent — an ROI (return on investment) of 4,200%.
• 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.
• Four out of five marketers would rather give up social media than email marketing.
• Across all industries, the average email open rate is 19.8%, the click-through rate is 11.3%, and the bounce rate is 9.4%.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The CTR metric is an important one for email marketing, because it indicates consumers taking action. When a reader “clicks through,” it’s because they were persuaded to. They want more information or to take whatever action was indicated (like buying something).

By comparison, Smart Insights reports an average CTR of 3.17% for Google Ads. And the average CTR for social media advertising is an even lower 1.3%, according to Statista.

So, email marketing is a proven, effective way to get people to take action.

Return on Investment (ROI)

But at the end of the day, the most important metric to a company is the return on investment. Email’s 4,200% ROI is off the charts compared with a mere 100% ROI for Google Ads.

In other Smart Insights research that asked marketers to rate the ROI of the various forms of digital marketing they use, 30% said email marketing and content marketing give them the highest ROI. Only search engine optimization (SEO) had a higher percentage… by just 2%.

Clearly, all the statistics show that email marketing works quite well… when done well.

To get the high-end, above-average results they’d like to see, though, companies need high-end, above-average email copy. They need trained, professional email copywriters to help them write that copy.

5 Ways Companies Use Email Marketing

To be clear, when we talk about email marketing, we’re talking about the intentional and strategic use of prewritten emails to communicate with a company’s prospects, customers, clients, and patients.

These are not the emails that individuals send each other. And these are not (usually) the emails companies send in reply to specific inquiries that require specific answers.

Instead, these are prewritten emails programmed into an email marketing service provider to be sent at a specific time — either a chosen date and time (Friday at 11 a.m.) or when triggered by someone taking a specific action (filling out an opt-in form, completing a purchase, requesting information, and so on).

The quick, fun, well-paid email marketing projects that companies most often hire email copywriters for are the following:

Single Transactional Emails

Although not traditionally thought of as “marketing,” these very short thank-you, confirmation, and welcome emails (among others) are often a missed opportunity to provide a good customer experience and build loyalty.

In the hands of a good email copywriter, these emails can be transformed from merely functional into a fun and thoughtful extension of the brand experience.

Single Promotional Emails

These stand-alone emails are usually short (the equivalent of a one-page sales letter). They’re written in a conversational tone “from” someone at the company. And the purpose of the email is to persuade the reader to take a specific action.

These emails can communicate a one-time sales promotion, offer a coupon or other special discount, make a special announcement, give a product update, or promote a company event.

Because they’re tied to revenue, promotional emails often are a priority for companies. And because they’re a priority, companies want them to be the best they can be. Often, this means hiring an email copywriter to write them.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are an automated series of prewritten emails (usually three, five, seven, or more) scheduled to drip out in response to a specific action taken by the prospect or customer — for example, when someone fills out an online form to request information, signs up to receive a lead magnet (such as a special report, free trial, or coupon code), or subscribes to a newsletter… just to name a few examples.

Each individual email is short and conversational, and is intended to move the reader to the next stage of the sales or relationship process.

In addition to introductory, “getting to know each other” autoresponder series sent when someone first gets added to an email list, autoresponders can be used to

• deliver sales offers (including upsells and cross-sells) after the prospect/customer does something to signal interest;
• provide confirmation and product instructions after a sale;
• deliver additional content related to something the reader already expressed interested in; or
• provide reminders that the reader hasn’t yet taken action (if they left something in their shopping cart, for example).

Writing an autoresponder series is a case of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. Each email in the series builds upon what came before it and sets the expectations for what follows it.

A five-email autoresponder series, then, is more than simply five emails. There is strategy and planning involved to make them flow together as a cohesive whole.

Email Campaigns

Like an autoresponder series, an email campaign is a planned, sequential series of emails promoting something (such as a product, service, or event). These also are short emails strategically tied together to move the reader forward toward taking the next step.

The difference between an email campaign and an autoresponder series is that autoresponders are a triggered response to a reader action. Email campaigns, on the other hand, are sent when the company wants to promote something.

Some examples of what email campaigns can be used to promote are

• an HVAC company promoting seasonal furnace or air-conditioning unit service,
• CPAs promoting advance tax planning (usually in the fourth quarter of the calendar year),
• new product launches,
• book launches,
• workshops, and
• large-scale events like trade shows and conferences (promoting the event itself or an individual company’s participation at the event).

As with autoresponder series, email campaigns need to be strategically planned so that the individual emails work together as a complete and cohesive whole.

Email Newsletters

Email newsletters (e-newsletters) are informative, typically content-heavy emails sent daily, weekly, monthly, or on some other regular schedule. They help a company stay top of mind, and keep subscribers engaged with a brand.

Content Marketing Institute reports that 81% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers send e-newsletters, and 31% say the e-newsletter is their highest-performing method of nurturing leads.

Here are some examples of content that might be included in an e-newsletter:

• original and/or curated articles
• customer success stories
• testimonials
• answers to common questions
• tips, tricks, and how-tos
• staff profiles
• customer profiles
• behind-the-scenes looks
• event calendar
• upcoming deadlines
• company announcements
• “insider” offers, deals, and promotions
• fun stuff — like memes, riddles, recipes, staff selfies, and so on — that makes the company relatable and provides personality

Consistency is critical when sending email newsletters, which is why some companies hesitate to implement this piece of email marketing. It’s the same reason why so many companies hire professional email copywriters to write their email newsletters for them.

Best Practices of Email Marketing

When someone signs up for an email list, they’re inviting a company into their space, into their inbox. That means the company sending the emails needs to be on their best behavior.

Engaging in email best practices is good for readers, but it’s good for companies, too. It improves their deliverability rates and reduces churn (the number of people who leave their list).

List Building

An email list is a valuable asset. And the health of a company’s sales and marketing is often reflected in the health of their list.

A healthy email list has readers who open, read, and take action on the emails they receive.

Having readers unsubscribe is a normal part of the process, too. In fact, unsubscribes are better than people staying on the list and never opening any of a company’s emails. Having an extremely low open rate can end up hurting a company’s deliverability because it tells the email providers’ algorithms that their emails may be perceived as spam.

So, although unsubscribes are normal, there must be new subscribers coming in to replace those who leave. A healthy list gets new subscribers at a rate that compensates for the unsubscribers.

In other words, if you add 10 new engaged subscribers for every 10 who unsubscribe, the list remains healthy.

If you add 20 new subscribers for every 10 who leave, the list grows. And so does the company.

This is why it’s an email marketing best practice to always be list building. And an email copywriter can play a significant role in helping a company build their list.

For example, you can consult about effective lead magnets that will attract subscribers who are a good fit, which makes for a stronger list… You can even offer to write lead magnets if that’s something you do in addition to writing email copy.

Note: Lead magnets are the freebies — guides, reports, checklists, coupons, and so on — that companies offer to give people in exchange for their email address and permission to send them marketing emails. HubSpot’s “Not Another State of Marketing Report” is an example of a lead magnet used to build an email list.

You might also advise your client on how to establish expectations for their new subscribers as part of the sign-up process. For example, if the company sends an email every day, the reader needs to know that.

Remember, email marketing is about building a relationship between a company and their prospects, customers, clients, and patients. And having clear expectations is an important part of a healthy relationship.

Segmentation

Segmenting an email list means categorizing subscribers based on criteria that help a company deliver more targeted information to them.

For example, a winery may segment their email subscribers by the criteria of red wine, white wine, and dessert wine. In doing so, they can send each segment targeted information and offers that they will be interested in.

They can send emails about red wine to the people who they already know like to drink red wine… and who are more likely to buy more of it. The reader likes this, too, because they don’t get emails about dessert wine that they’re not interested in.

Segmenting a list takes a little more effort than simply dumping all subscribers into one big bucket. But it’s worth it.

Campaign Monitor reports that marketers who send email to segmented lists increase their revenue by 760%.

When a company’s email marketing can speak more directly to a reader about what’s important to them, it will be more effective. List segmentation is the first part of what makes that happen. Great, targeted email copy is the other part of the equation.

A/B Testing

A/B testing (sometimes referred to as “split testing”) is the practice of running two slightly different versions of a marketing piece against each other at the same time — delivering option A to one group of people and option B to a second group — to see which is more effective at getting results.

Statistics show that 90% of marketers use A/B testing, and 56% say A/B testing is a priority in their email marketing.

They most often test variations of the following email elements:

• subject lines (including preview text or preheader text)
• calls to action (CTAs)
• send time
• send day
• email layout
• position of content

The information gained by split testing guides future email marketing decisions. When the test involves copy — as it does when subject lines and CTAs are the elements being tested — it gives the email copywriter invaluable information about the company’s audience and what best resonates with them.

This is why, as an email copywriter, you always want to request the results of any A/B tests.

Of course, A/B testing isn’t just a way to satisfy idle curiosity about what readers will respond better to. There’s a direct correlation to the bottom line as well.

In fact, HubSpot reports companies that make it a practice to always include an A/B test in their emails boost their ROI up to 4,800%. Remember, the average ROI from email marketing is already an incredible 4,200%… A/B testing takes an already good thing to the next level.

Email Marketing Opportunities for Digital Copywriters

Companies of all sizes and across all industries use email marketing. There is a huge need for email copywriters to help them get the best results possible.

To get a sampling of the industries using email marketing — and a bit of proof that they are testing and tracking their results — just look at this Constant Contact data from early 2022 showing the email open rates by industry.