Start Writing Emails that Convert!

Writing emails that convert recipients into new business is definitely something all small business owners strive to do. However, spending your own time trying to write good emails has a lot of risk associated with it. The same goes for those of you out there using the stock/template emails provided to you by your corporate parent. These emails get you ignored, market as spam, or instantly trashed. That’s why it’s so important that you are doing everything you can to truly reach the people that do open and read your emails!

It’s time to start making email marketing work for you and that’s why I’ve put together the 4 critical things your email marketing needs in order to get your conversions.

4 Requirements for Building Emails that Convert

1) Subject Lines

Your subject lines are so important. They say a lot about you even if the email is about something entirely different. While I’ve written about subject lines being similar to first impressions, I want to share with you again, the 5 keys to writing effective subject lines:

• Create intrigue to prompt them to open the email.
• Build trust by making the content match the subject line.
• Be informative and brief so they can easily scan their inbox.
• Calls-to-action help open rates and need to be reflected in the email content.
• Delivery of your emails happens everywhere so they need to be formatted for mobile devices.
• Even if someone doesn’t open your emails, it’s important to remember that your emails are like little billboards in someone’s inbox. When your emails have a high deliverability rate, it means that they are getting to someone’s inbox, not their spam filter. Even if they don’t open the email that time, over time, they’ll find a topic from you that has sparked their interest. That’s why you always have to be on your game with email marketing.

2) Content

Having content for your emails is one thing; having email content that inspires readers to come back and convert is another. A lot of smaller businesses we work with like mortgage professionals and real estate use pre-written content from their parent companies, promoting new home listings and lower interest rates. I’ll let you know right now that those are some of the lowest converting emails you can send.

Building good content for email campaigns can be tough but there are three things you can do to help you consistently deliver content that keeps readers coming back for more:

• Be relevant and share information that is not directly about you or your business, but topically adjacent.
• Show restraint in your desire to “sell” or “pitch” to your email lists. Rather, showcase your expertise on interesting topics and brand yourself professionally.
• Maintain a regular cadence of emails. Sending six a week is a bad approach and will burn you out too. Sending an email four times a year isn’t enough. We send emails here on a twice per month rate and find this to be the ideal schedule for delivering the best results.

3) Clear Calls-to-Action (CTA)

The emails you’re sending to your prospects and clients have two purposes. The primary purpose is to help you stay top-of-mind through interesting, entertaining, and relevant content. The secondary is to help get you more business. While I can argue that overall, email marketing is all about getting leads, you have to approach this part of your marketing with a little more tact and finesse.

Just because your emails you send aren’t specifically about immediate sales and referral business, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include that in your emails. I wrote a post a while back about the key elements of email newsletter for real estate agents and for CTA’s to be effective, they need to blend in to the email and be available for when someone is ready to do business. They should not be the primary focus on your email marketing.

4) Automation

Whether you’ve already been doing email marketing for your business or if you’re just getting started, be sure to make the most of your time and money. If you have the free time and knowledge to put together good email marketing newsletters, then more power to you. However, I have a feeling that there are other things that you’d rather occupy your day doing.

By automating some or all of your email marketing, you’ll get back your day, increase your repeat business without breaking the bank, professionally brand yourself, and get a better ROI overall. We can do this for you too. Learn more here.
So rather than continuing down the path you’re on right now, you have a chance to revisit your email marketing strategy over the upcoming holiday breaks. Whether you’re new to it entirely or revisiting your existing marketing strategy, just remember that your emails should be gear to help first and sell second. Not the other way around.

If you need any help at all, let us know. We do the work for you from content creation to email marketing and full automation. Created by us, sent from you.