A-Z Of Email Marketing

What Makes an Email “Junk”?
The A to Z of Email Marketing
Copywriting is such an underrated skill that is so valuable to everything we do in the world of
marketing. This is especially true when it comes to writing an email. Emails have always
been a strong and empowering way of getting your message across to your audience. In our
society today, we may feel as if our electronic mail communications will be lost in a sea of
Facebook status updates, but statistics show that email marketing is still the strongest media
to advertise and converse through. 81% of businesses still use emails as their primary
customer acquisition channel and for their client retention. That’s a remarkable statistic
considering there’s such a big stigma surrounding the competency of emails, but they are
very powerful and can give you great results…if used in the correct way.
There is one particular skill that you need to master before you can sit back and relax with
your emails, and that’s copywriting. For those who may be unfamiliar with the terminology,
copywriting is a marketer’s way of creating an emotional connection with an audience
through written communication, whether that be through email, blogs or social posts. The
most important thing I can say to you when it comes to writing is that whenever you are
talking about your product in any form of your copy, it is vital that you treat your
product as a service.
“Sell a good night’s sleep…not the mattress”
Now, email copywriting is very different to what you’d use on Facebook for instance. There
are a set of “commandments” that are vital to live by to send the most effective emails to
your clients.
1. Subject line
2. Use of personalisation
3. Bullet points
4. P.s’s
5. Actionable language
6. Relevancy
7. Benefits vs. Features
With this set of rules in your writing arsenal, you will be composing emails with higher open
rates and opt-in rates before you can say “you’ve got mail”…
Subject Lines: Just like attending a job interview or going on a date with someone you met
online – first impressions are EVERYTHING. And that is especially the case with emails.
The subject line is the first thing any recipient will read on an email and it needs to stand out.
If it isn’t relevant or interesting, it will just be scrolled past and won’t inspire your list to take
action. The ability to write an interesting subject line can be challenging and hard to think of.
When coming up with your engaging “title”, it’s important to leverage human desires and
curiosities – this is where a question works exceptionally well. Emails that feature a question
in the subject line have a 60% higher open rate than those that don’t. Another way of
increasing interest is by using strong and exciting verbs to grab your recipient’s attention and
to bring drama to your emails. If that doesn’t work for you, there’s nothing wrong with being
a little provocative! Try providing a subject line with a slightly controversial message, if
anything, you’ll arouse interest and curiosity within the recipient, urging them to read on.
© 2018-2021 Rieder Wellness Ltd

Research has shown that shorter subject lines receive a better open rate than those with longer
ones. This is likely due to where most recipients are consuming their emails – their mobile
phones. If the subject line is too long, it may look bad on a mobile device and be cut off at an
important point, meaning they will not get the whole story and won’t want to click. It’s also
great to use what I like to call “action phrases”, these are lines such as ‘act now’ or ‘don’t
miss out’. They give the recipient an idea of what you want them to do, before they even
open the email. A great extra tip for your subject lines is personalisation, it’s refreshing for
people to receive an email that has their name in the subject line, it stops them feeling like
they’re just another email in a list of thousands.
Use of Personalisation: Emails that are well segmented often have higher engagement levels
with their open rate and opt-in rate than those that don’t. According to a recent study, emails
that are targeted generate 58% higher revenue. This isn’t surprising when you consider that
the more segmented your list is, the more freedom you have to personalise it and give more
relevant content to the reader. You want to enable yourself to talk to a more direct audience
to get a clearer message across. Just think…would you talk the same to a client who’s only
been in for two adjustments, as you would a client who’s not been in to see you for 8 months,
but has spent £1000. You wouldn’t, right? You ultimately know that the latter client is more
valuable and you’d need to be clever about how you invite them back in to your clinic. The
most important thing to remember with personalisation is that the reader wants to feel like the
focus is on them and what’s in it for them, rather than a generalisation of the benefits. 75% of
customers say that they’re more likely to do business with a company that uses their name,
makes recommendations based on their past experiences or knows their past interactions with
the products/service.
Bullet Points: These are a great way to engage your reader when they are consuming your
email. If you have a long form of copy, with lots of plain paragraphs, the reader can get very
bored and decide to just give up on reading your email. Bullets points are a fantastic way of
breaking up your text and highlighting important points you want to make sure the recipient
has read. Bullet points are also great for content-rich emails, like if you wanted to state the
“top 5 tips for a healthy Christmas” or the “10 facts you need to know about sciatica”.
Bulleted content should be introduced with short, catchy phrasing that draws the eye of the
reader. They don’t need to tell the reader what every section is about, but they act as
summarisers or a sort of contents page. The thought process to have in mind is “if the reader
only read the bullet points, could they get enough information to understand the purpose
of the email…?”
The Post Script: Now, who doesn’t love a “p.s.” at the end of an email, that last little bit of
information just before you head off, that actually ends up being the most important line in
the email! Well if you’ve never felt like that before, you should be, that’s the whole point of
the post script line. The best reasons to use them are to hook the recipient with a
compelling link, to make a final plea to take up your offer, to create an element of
urgency, to provide bonus information or a further offer and lastly, to ask if they’d like to
share a testimonial (this is a great one). Ask yourself…“What’s the beginning, middle and
end?”, just like in any story. The beginning is always the subject line, the middle is your
compelling offer and reasons to why it’s different from all the others, and then lastly is your
end – the almighty “p.s.”.
P.s. The final thought.
© 2018-2021 Rieder Wellness Ltd

Speak Actionable Language: Whenever you’re writing an email to your list, you are more
often than not, prompting your reader to take some form of action. Getting your recipient to
take action on a certain thing is usually down to two things: engagement and revenue. I really
think that if you’re not prompting some form of action in every email you send, no matter
how small, you’re doing something wrong. We have to remember, people aren’t that clever in
the grand scheme of things and they need to be told what to do. So when you want to get
them to follow a link or click a button, you have to instruct them as to where, why and
how, multiple times throughout your email copy. Email copywriting is one of the more
difficult forms of copy, as unlike a Facebook advert, you are having to prompt for two
actions to be taken: they need to open your email (first action) and then click through to
whatever you’ve placed in the email (second action). That’s why every single cog in the
email copy is integral to its success, from the subject line to the post scripts. Using
“actionable” language doesn’t always mean using strong verbs like “take”, “buy” or
“download” to direct their behaviour, you just need to use phrases that point them in the right
direction. It’s good to focus more on what you want the recipient to do with the information
in the email, not what to do once they’ve opened it.
It’s All Relevant: Just like in an email subject line, your email copy should seek to establish
relevancy through personalisation. It takes more than just a name in the email header to
warrant a reason for them to be receiving an email from you, so this is where it’s great to
explain just how you know each other. For example…
“Hi there ~Contact.FirstName~,
It's been a long time since we last saw you at your local clinic for a treatment
session and we miss you ~Contact.FirstName~...!
Did you know you can book your next appointment with us now in less than a minute?
You are overdue an appointment with us and we just wanted to remind you the importance
of maintaining care to keep your body healthy, strong and aligned. You may feel like you
are now pain-free but our care can not only help to reduce pain but also maintain your
nervous system to ensure its keeping at its optimal potential.
You can get your next check-up booked in with us now by simply clicking on the button
below, we'd love to see you in our clinic soon.”
The text above that is in red, straight away set’s the precedence of “this is why your being
emailed”. Also, notice the sentence in blue, this is a hyperlinked actionable sentence, leading
the reader to a link to book a provisional appointment, prompting them to be given a call to
confirm their booking. The only reason this reader would receive this email is if they had not
been in to see us for a while and it’s relevant to them as they’d know that they’ve not been in
for a little while. Nonetheless, you must be relevant if you want your email to be opened.
63% of people say that they’d think more positively of a company if it gave them more
valuable, interesting and relevant content. You only have a few minutes, even seconds, to
convince your reader that your email is worth their time, which is why establishing relevance
is so important, meeting them at the right point in their journey. Sending the right email, at
the right time, is such a vital part of email marketing.
*Ding Ding* It’s Benefits Vs. Features: I put a question to you now...? How often have you
received an email from a company with a lavish description about how great a product is,
© 2018-2021 Rieder Wellness Ltd

with a call to action telling you must buy now? I bet it’s a lot, right? I mean, you may have
even sent one yourself…? Too many emails nowadays focus too much on the features of a
product or service that they’re trying to sell. The one statement that helps you think about
how you should be getting your message across is simply:
“That’s great for YOU, but how does this help ME?”
That is what every customer says to themselves when they get an email like that. There’s a
simple solution, ditch the pretentiousness and start focusing on the pure delight and value
your customers will experience from using your product or service. What is that one thing
your chiropractic adjustment will help them to solve? Put yourself in the shoes of the
reader and consider their emotions and how they may be feeling or what they’re struggling
with and what they might want to achieve. It really isn’t complicated.
Email copywriting is just a mixture of pure art and science. There is a tried and tested
formula that will push you in the right direction to succeed. You just have to add a bit of
“you”, and dedicate yourself to write and improve at your copywriting, the words will come,
you just need to take the action to begin writing them.
So remember…
• Be relevant
• Give value
• Be consistent
• It’s good to test what works for you
• Measure, measure, measure
• The shorter, the better
• Don’t be afraid to be bold, highlight a few key areas and don’t dodge the bullet
(point)
Dr. Ryan Rieder (DC)
The Information provided by Rieder Wellness Ltd is for general informational and educational
purposes only and should be used as a model or guideline to base your work on and tweak where
necessary.
You should not rely solely upon the material or information as a basis for making any business,
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Rieder Wellness Ltd accepts no responsibility and any reliance you place on such material is
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© 2018-2021 Rieder Wellness Ltd