Tips to Write a Marketing Email for More Opens and Clicks

These aren’t your traditional tips to write a marketing email. These are data-backed tips and techniques that are focused on improving email open rate, CTR, engagement, and conversions.

An average business makes $72 for every $1 spent on email marketing.

But this won’t happen with poorly written emails.

Most businesses use a template from their email marketing tool, add AI-generated content, and expect their email campaigns to do wonders.

Well, that’s not how it works.

If you are into email marketing, you must know how to write a marketing email that is opened, read, and clicked.

This article explores tips to write a marketing email based on all the major elements of an email.

What is a Marketing Email?

A marketing email is a promotional email sent out to a list of subscribers who opted to receive marketing emails from you. It’s a marketing technique used to generate sales, boost engagement, and connect with your subscribers.

Marketing email is a general term used to denote any type of email that you send to your list. The purpose of the email might not always be to market a product or service. For instance, you might send an informational email to your list or share details of an event.

Email is used as a marketing tool to communicate with your audience:

The common types of marketing emails include:

• Newsletters
• Survey emails
• Promotional emails
• Welcome emails
• News and announcement
• Educational emails
• Event invitation
• Cart abandonment
• Discount emails
• Transactional emails.

Parts of a Marketing Email

Before we dive into the tips to write a marketing email, it’s essential to understand the parts of an email. A marketing email has 4 primary parts that play a major role in its performance:

1. Subject Line

The email subject is the first thing that your subscribers see and read. It impacts email click-through and open rates. As much as 69% of people mark email as spam based on the subject line:

It shows the importance of email subject line and how it drives engagement. You need to ensure that the subject line is catchy and hooks the readers.

2. Preheader Text

The email preheader is the second part that people read after the subject line. It’s the text that appears after the subject line in the inbox. It gives a preview of the email content to the subscribers.

Here’s an example of preheader text:

Statistics show that 24% of recipients decide to open an email based on its preheader text and optimized preheaders lead to a 7% higher email open rate.

3. Body

Email body or email copy is the main part of a marketing email. It is the content of the email that a subscriber accesses by opening your email.

The body isn’t accessible directly to the recipients. The subject and preheader text must be compelling enough to persuade them to open your email. It carries the crux of a marketing email.

4. Call to Action

A CTA is a part of an email copy. The call to action button or link helps you achieve your desired goal such as a purchase, download a file, or visit a page.

The CTA needs to be prominent, clear, and descriptive. It should communicate the benefits to the readers. The subscribers should know what to expect after they click CTA in the email.

Tips to Write a Marketing Email

If you want to write epic marketing emails, follow these best practices and proven tips for success:

Subject Line

A compelling marketing email starts with an optimized and attention-grabbing subject line. It is the first thing people see and read.

The email subject line is at the forefront and it hides email copy, design, CTA, and everything else.

It needs to persuade recipients to open your email. An unopened email is a wasted email and the only way someone will open your email is by reading the subject (and sender name).

Follow these best practices to optimize subject lines:

• Keep it short and descriptive. Subject lines having 6-10 words have the highest open rate (up to 21%) followed by 0-5 words in the subject with a 16% open rate. The ideal length of the email subject line is between 30 to 50 characters (roughly 7 words). However, shorter subject lines work better as they show completely in the inbox across all devices which means your message is conveyed completely. It’s better to have a short but whole subject than a long but incomplete one that doesn’t make sense.
• Personalize it. Personalized subject lines have double email open rate than non-personalized subject lines. The best way to personalize a subject line is to add the recipient’s name. If the name isn’t available, refer to a pain point or past interaction with your brand. 
• Add recipient name. Emails having the recipient’s name in the subject lines have 18.30% higher open rates.
• Add free. Adding the word ‘free’ in the subject has 10% higher open rates than emails without. This is, however, suitable for emails that offer something for free. Don’t use free to boost open rates for emails that don’t offer anything free. This will backfire.
• Showcase urgency in the subject line. Show urgency in the subject line as it increases the open rate by 22%. Don’t create fake urgency. You need to craft your email marketing campaign in a way that it has a certain timeline. For instance, you can offer a discount code that’s valid for 24 hours only. Share the urgent nature of the email’s content in the subject line.
• Talk about pain points. Referring to your audience’s pain point in the subject line increases the open rate by 28%. You can do this if you have well-defined buyer personas and email segments. Creating segments makes it easy to send targeted emails and that’s when you can refer to highly specific pain points in the subject line.
• Use emojis. Add an emoji in the subject line to make your email stand out in the recipient’s inbox. It catches their attention and is more likely to get opened
• Add numbers. Use a number in the subject line such as 15% or 2 days to go. Subject lines with numbers have 57% better open rates than subjects without.

Research shows that sometimes it’s good to send emails without a subject. Such emails are opened 8% more than emails with a subject line.

Test different variations and see what type of subject line works best for your audience.

Align Subject Line with Email Copy

Writing an interesting and catchy subject doesn’t mean it should act as a standalone element of a marketing email. It must align with the email copy.

This alignment is essential.

Think of the subject line as a trailer. It should give an overview of the email without disclosing everything – and it should be interesting enough that recipients open your email.

Research shows that 54% of people say that they have felt cheated or deceived into opening an email by its subject:

It happens a lot.

Marketers use deceptive practices to encourage users to open an email. This creates two issues:

1. It sets inaccurate expectations and when the email doesn’t meet those expectations, it leads to disappointment and unsubs
2. Poor brand credibility if you do it excessively.

The role of a subject line isn’t to boost open rate rather it should focus on conversions.

When you focus on email clicks (instead of open rate), you’ll write subject lines that are perfectly aligned with email copy.

The subject line should:

1. Talk about the email content and the offer
2. Communicate the purpose of the email
3. Show subscribers why they need to open this email and click the CTA (what’s in it for them).

Here’s an example of a subject line that aligns with the email body and follows the 3 rules above:

The subject sets the expectations and the email body delivers the same. That’s what you need to do when writing a marketing email.

Don’t make subject lines too catchy that they become silos.

Preheader Text

The preheader is the text that appears after the subject in the email box. The purpose of the preheader text is to provide a summary of the email content to the recipient so they can decide if they want to open or discard an email.

When writing a marketing email, you are required to add a preheader text. You can use it to entice recipients to open your email and click the CTA.

People tend to read preheaders to get an idea of what an email is about. If it’s something they like to read more about, they’ll open it.

This is proven by an analysis of 20 million emails sent. Emails with preheaders have higher open and click rates than emails without preheaders:

Follow these best practices to write high-converting and attention-grabbing preheaders for your marketing emails:

• Choose the right length. There’s no exact length for a preheader as it varies from device to device. Generally, a preheader between 30-80 characters will appear perfect on most devices without getting stripped. Even if your email marketing platform offers more characters, you should keep it under 80 characters so it is fully readable.
• Add a call to action in the preheader. Encourage readers to open your email with a powerful CTA like ‘open this email to get XYZ’. Give readers a reason to open your email and take action. Simply providing them with an overview of the email might not work too well. List benefits and tell them what’s in it for them. That’s how a preheader will lead to more openings.
• Avoid repeating the subject. The preheader shouldn’t be a copy of the subject line. It needs to unleash something unique about the email content. Don’t make it a part of the subject line.
• Set expectations. Preview text is ideal for setting recipient expectations about email. You can share a short snippet of what’s in the email so they know what’s waiting for them when they open your email. The idea is to align the preheader with the email body without creating unnecessary hype or using any form of clickbait.
• Align the preheader with the subject. The preview text shouldn’t act as a standalone part of your marketing email. It must align with the email subject line. It could be an extension of the subject and must provide more insights to the readers.
• Incentivize. Incentivizing recipients and disclosing the incentive in preheader text is a great way to boost open rates. For instance, if the email contains a coupon code, mention it in the preview text.
• Use emojis. One easy way to stand out in your subscriber’s inbox is by adding relevant emojis in the preheader. This makes your email colorful and visually appealing in the inbox. 

Email Copy

The email body is the main part of a marketing email. But email content is only available to people who open your email.

No matter how great an email copy is, if it isn’t opened, nobody will read it.

This is a reason why the subject and preheader must work together to encourage recipients to open your email. If any component fails to deliver its part, the email fails miserably.

Research shows that 84% of opened emails are read. The average time a user will spend reading an email is approximately 9-10 seconds:

This means if recipients open your email, they will read it. You need to make it count.

Here are the proven tips to follow when writing an email body:

• Have a purpose. Don’t send an email for the sake of an email. If you don’t have something exclusive, worth-sharing with your list, don’t send an email. Have a clearly defined purpose for your email to boost its engagement and impact.
• The content should be unique. Avoid sending content copied from a recent blog post in an email. Even if you are repurposing content, make sure you reword it and make it unique.
• Make the body relevant to the subject and preheader. This is essential for high engagement. The email body should deliver the promise made in the subject and preview text. These components should work together to boost email engagement.
• Keep it short. The average length of an email body is 50-150 words. Lengthy emails don’t work too well unless your list is used to reading long emails. For instance, I am subscribed to multiple newsletters and some of them send one email after 1-2 months but it’s very detailed and long-form. The subscribers are used to these long emails because that’s what we all subscribed for. Unless your email has a special purpose, keep it short and under 150 words.
• Start with a summary of the content. The first paragraph of the email should be a quick summary of the email body. Tell readers what email is about and what they are expected to do after reading it. Add a CTA at the end of the summary. You can then go into detail after the brief. This helps subscribers get access to the crux of your email right at the top without scrolling down to the bottom. It increases CTR and boosts engagement significantly.
• Use a conversational tone. The tone you use in an email copy defines how much time people will spend interacting with it. A conversational tone works best as it gives readers the feeling you are directly talking to them. Use the second person point of view and use ‘you’ and ‘your’ to make recipients realize you are talking to them. Professional and business tone lacks personal touch and these types of emails are usually skimmed with minimal engagement. 
• Cover benefits, not features. Marketing emails should talk about the benefits of the offer instead of its features. Your ideal customers aren’t interested in product features, they are only interested in how your product can solve their pain points. You need to tell them how your offer solves their problems and why they should act now.
• Offer value. Your email should deliver exceptional value to the readers. This is how you’ll see a high engagement and CTR. 
• Be unique. Sending the same product that you have listed on your store in an email won’t move the needle. Your email should offer value to the subscribers. They should get what they usually don’t find on your website or outlet. Sending generic offers in an email will lead to a poor CTR.
• Format and structure the email body. Your email must have an introduction, main body, conclusion, and a CTA. The body must include headings, subheadings, lists, outgoing links, etc. The content must be formatted and the email should have a proper structure with distinct parts and elements. 
• Add visuals. Adding images in the email copy boosts comprehension and visual appearance. You can convey your message easily via an image. Plain text-based emails look boring and people aren’t used to reading such emails anymore. Spice up your email by adding relevant visual elements.

Here’s an example of the structure of a marketing email and how it should be formatted:

The email marketing tools offer a wide range of customizable templates to help marketers craft a perfect email. It’s best to use an existing (top performing) template and add your content.

Call to Action

A call to action is the last component of a marketing email. It’s the most important element as it drives clicks.

The purpose of a marketing email is to generate clicks. Here’s an example of an email CTA:

If recipients don’t click CTA after reading your email, it’s a loss. Ideally, open rate and CTR should be equivalent which is a healthy sign. If the CTR is too low compared to the email open rate, you have a problem with your CTA.

It’s best to use a single CTA per email. If you have a short email (under 150 words), having multiple CTAs will add friction. It creates confusion and you might lose potential clicks.

Research shows that emails with a single CTA receive 371% more clicks than emails with multiple CTAs:

This is a reason the majority of email marketers use a single CTA per email:

You should use one CTA per email to minimize distraction and keep things easy for subscribers. Follow these tips to write high converting CTAs for your marketing emails:

• Use personalized CTAs. An analysis of more than 330K CTAs for 6 months revealed that personalized call to action performs 202% better than other types of CTAs. Examples of personalized CTAs include I am in, Send me discount code, Get your free trial, Discover your offer, etc.
• Use descriptive CTA text or button. One of the purposes of a call to action is to guide recipients as to what action they have to take once they have finished reading your email. This is a reason why CTA needs to be descriptive. It should clearly tell readers what they are supposed to do to get the offer.
• Use actionable language. Action verbs like ‘take’, ‘reserve’, ‘ask’, ‘download’, ‘buy’, etc. increase CTR as they communicate with the reader. Actionable language makes it clear what action they have to perform to get access to the product or offer.
• All CTAs should direct to the same offer. If you want to use more than one CTA in an email body (e.g., one at the top and one at the bottom), make sure all the CTAs lead to the same offer. 
• Make call to action prominent. Since the call to action is the most important part of a marketing email, it needs to be prominent. Use contrasting colors for CTA buttons. Use bold and highlight for text CTAs. The call to action should be the first thing a recipient sees after opening your email. 
• Add white space around CTA. A study found that white space around a call to action increases the conversion rate by 232%. White space increases focus and boosts readability. Adding white space around your CTA button in an email will make it prominent leading to more clicks and conversions.
• Use a CTA button. Text-based call to actions are more likely to be mixed with remaining text – and thus ignored. Button CTAs are visually prominent and grab attention immediately. A study found that replacing text CTAs with button CTA increases CTR by 32%.
• CTA must be consistent with email content and offer. Your call to action is part of the email copy and must be aligned with it and the offer. The subject, preview text, email body, and CTA should be consistent and must promote the same offer.

Final Thoughts

An average individual receives around 121 emails per day. Your email needs to be special to stand out in the inbox.

You need to get better at writing emails – much better than your competitors.

The tips to write a marketing email covered in this article cover all the 4 key components of an email. Start practicing and implementing these techniques and you will see an increase in engagement, open rate, and CTRs.

If you don’t see results, run A/B tests to check the subject line, preheader, email copy, and CTA. Try to find the winning email format that your list loves. That’s the only way to be successful with email marketing.

Featured Image: Pexels