Crush Your Content May 10, 2018, | Posted by Erin

It is a fact across the industry that it does not matter how good your creative is, or how compelling your subject line is, if the content of your email is lacking. The flashiest, most visually clever design is never going to overcome a weak call to action or poorly-composed copy. Site Impact has spent years working on the trial-and-error of email copy, and we all know first-hand that there’s no saving bad copy; but there are numerous ways to prevent it from happening in the first place. By following a few rules and tips for better content writing, you can crush the problem of faulty copy in an otherwise flawless campaign.

Know what you want to say, and who you want to say it to

The first rule of writing in general is to have a clear idea to communicate, and a clear idea of who your audience is. This is truer of email than of almost any other format. Content for email should not only be clear and concise; it should be something that gets across a specific idea or message in a way that is accessible even to people “skimming” the words, looking for only what’s relevant to them to make a decision on whether to act. This is especially important when it comes to those recipients opening emails on mobile devices; small screens do no favors to copious content. Know your recipients, too; what will appeal to one demographic group in terms of language and content isn’t going to be as compelling to another.

Focus on “you.”

Consumers increasingly crave personalized messages from brands; the days of wide-bore email blasts are well past the industry now. Content in email marketing messages should focus more on the benefits of the offer to the recipient than on the brand making the offer. People are more interested in what they have to gain from responding to the email--through clicking through to redeem an offer, or buy a product--than they are, necessarily, in your brand itself. Brand loyalty stems from consistent value provided to customers; content should foster the idea that you’re providing that value. This also means focusing more on benefits of the product than on features of it.

Keep it clean.

This doesn’t--necessarily--refer to “blue” language in content, though that is to be avoided as well, but instead is a reminder to proofread your content at least twice, and with at least two different pairs of eyes, before you commit to it. Spelling errors, typos, grammatical mistakes should all be minimized as much as possible. Not only that, but you should be checking in any proofread to make sure that nothing comes across in a way you don’t intend: what can read innocently to one audience may create an extremely inflammatory impression on another. By going through multiple proofreads, you can make sure that your message is as clean, effective, and appealing as possible.

Email content can seem like a lot of extra work to put in, when there are so many other details to determine the success of a campaign. But investing a little effort into the process of making sure your email is crushing it can pay off in major boosts to engagement and response: higher click-through rates, more conversions, more social shares, and so on. Contact Site Impact today to find out how we can help you create copy that will hit the nail on the head every time.