How to Create Emails that Engage, Convert, and Retain Customers.

As a business owner, you know that email is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. But with inboxes overflowing and attention spans dwindling, it’s more important than ever to create emails that not only stand out but also deliver real value to your subscribers.

To achieve this you need to understand what makes a successful email campaign. This is where I come in.

In this post I’m going to teach you an effective way of writing marketing emails that is not only going to make the whole process faster and easier, but most importantly it’s going to help you quickly craft high converting emails that build trust, make sales, and grow your business.

As someone who's been in the email marketing game for years I can look at an email right away and know whether it’s going to convert or not. Based on my experience I’ve identified 10 key elements that contribute to a successful email campaign. And that’s what I'm excited to be sharing with you here.

So, let me show you how it’s done starting with the first part of the formula.

1. Topic

When it comes to creating marketing emails, especially marketing emails that you hope convert into sales and customers, it’s incredibly important to keep them centered around one single talking point. In other words, they've got to be focused around a single theme, or a single idea, or a story that you’re going to build your email on.

To help you centralize your idea I recommend you ask yourself these questions before writing your very first word.

What is this email about?

What do I want to share?

And

What do I want people to do when they finish reading?

Now is not the time to take people in a million different directions and tell them everything that you have going on. Rather you want to keep it short, sweet, and relatively concise.

2. Subject Line.

When it comes to email marketing, the subject line is the key that unlocks the door to your audience's attention. As such it is considered the most important part of your email marketing. You may have the best email content in the world but it won't matter if nobody clicks to open it.

This is why spending just a little bit of extra time crafting a really compelling and curiosity-invoking subject line can go a very long way.

Before writing your subject line, I’d like to propose that you ask yourself the following question:

“What can I say that not only grabs my readers' attention but also accurately reflects the content of my email?"

By doing so, you'll be able to craft a subject line that piques your audience's interest and entices them to open your email. Remember, a little extra effort in this area can make all the difference when it comes to the success of your campaign.

3. Preview Text

The preview text is the text that appears alongside the “from” name in the email when someone sees it in their inbox. Now, editing the preview text in your email isn’t available in all service providers. But if you do have the ability to edit and customize it I highly recommend you do so because it’s going to give you another opportunity to hook and entice your reader into clicking open.

In this regard ConvertKit is my go-to recommendation for email service providers, and one of the reasons why is its user-friendly interface for editing preview text. Plus, ConvertKit offers a plethora of other benefits that help improve email open and click-through rates.

4. Opening Paragraph

This is where people often struggle the most. Rather than just diving into the email they tend to stall, delay, fill it with fluff and unnecessary details, or random information that the reader probably doesn’t care that much about. The key with the opening paragraph of your marketing email is to really just dive right in and say it like it is.

Sure, you can say hi, or hey, or hello, whatever suits your style. But once that’s done it’s time to dive right into the content. The reality is people are busy and you don’t want to lose them before they’ve even had a chance to get to the good stuff.

5. Body

It’s here that you want to do one of three things, or maybe even all three if it fits your style. I call these three things tales, tips, and terror.

For tales, simply tell a story, either yours or someone else’s. Because the reality is stories do sell and they connect us on a deeper, more emotional and human level.

For tips, share a few ideas, or suggestions, or perhaps a useful piece of content that you’ve read, or seen, or heard recently. Anything goes here as long as your audience will find it useful and relevant to them.

And for terror, well, you can talk about a problem that your current or potential customers have had or that they may experience at some point in the future. The goal here isn’t necessarily to scare your readers but rather to prepare them for some of the future mistakes and possible minefields that they’ll want to avoid in their journey.

6. Summary.

This is your chance to wrap up pretty much everything you just said in the body. The summary also gives you an opportunity to answer any unanswered questions that may be taking place in your readers’ minds.

These could be things like:

What’s your point?

Why should I care?

Or

How does this relate to me?

A quick summary will do here. There’s no need to repeat everything you’ve just said. Once done, it's now time to guide them to the desired action- the CTA.

7. Call to Action

This is arguably the second most important part of the email next to the subject line.

By this point of the email you’ve told your story, or offered your tips, or delivered some “terror”, and now it’s time to guide your reader to exactly what they should do next. Never assume they’ll figure out what to do on their own. You literally have to spell it out step by step for them. Not because they’re dumb but because they’re busy, and the job of guiding them in the right direction is on you.

So tell them what to do here, even if it’s as simple as getting them to click a link, or hit reply to the email, or watch a video, or simply ponder all the great ideas that you just presented them with.

Make sure you ask them to do something or they’ll do nothing.

8. Sign Off

This part is nice and simple. Just sign off with whatever style suits you best.

This could be take care, or sincerely, or ciao, or peace out. Whatever you want, as long as it's appropriate and aligns with the style you've used throughout the email.

9. PS

PS stands for postscript, which is just a fancy word for an additional message added after the main body of an email.

Despite being a relatively small part of your email, the PS can be an incredible opportunity to reinforce your core message and make sure your readers are taking the actions you want them to. Think about it: how many times have you skimmed an email, only to read the PS section at the bottom? If you're like most people, this happens quite often.

By strategically using your PS section to repeat your main points, highlight your call to action, or guide your readers towards the next step, you can make sure that even skimmers and scanners are getting the message loud and clear.

So, next time you craft an email, remember to put some thought into your PS section - it could be the key to boosting engagement and conversions.

10. Review

This is less of a part and more of an action. But it's important nonetheless.

This is where you’re going to review the email that you’re about to send from top to bottom, ideally reading everything out loud as you go. Reading out loud allows you to find any awkward sentences, phrases, or words. This is important because most people when they read an email, or when they read anything really, say the words to themselves internally through a process known as subvocalization. So by reading the words out loud to yourself first you get to ensure that your email flows smoothly.

Once you've finished reviewing your email, ask yourself one final, incredibly important question:

“If I was my target market, would this be an email that I would want to receive?”

If the answer is yes, hit send. If the answer is no, go back to the beginning and see if you can find any areas that you can make a little more interesting or a little more valuable.