5 Copywriting Tips from ContentClear Marketing

Copywriting. It’s a word that can strike fear in the heart of any small business owner or beginning marketer. It’s an important part of creating your emails and other online content.

Pam Foster, owner of ContentClear Marketing, has made her career in copywriting. Before starting her business in 2006, she wrote copy for companies such as L.L. Bean and Idexx. Now, she helps a lot of businesses improve their web and email copy and their marketing tactics in general.

“I really take a scientific approach to make sure I’m advising my clients with the latest findings on what really works best. There are always exceptions, but why not start with what has been tested and proven to work best and then take it from there,” says Pam. So what does this scientific approach look like?

5 Tried and True Tips

1. Offer the big promise and then clearly deliver

Your subject line will be the first thing the subscriber sees in their inbox, and this is your chance to catch their eye. You want to make a promise that will compel them to open and read your email.

“
Pam found that ‘free shipping’ performs better than a ‘% off’ offer.

Based on the findings at MarketingExperiments, Pam has learned that subject lines with a “get” phrase outperform ones that tell readers to do something. The psychology behind this is that “getting” something is an appealing benefit. She’s also found that “free shipping” performs better than a “% off” offer.

Don’t forget that your email will need to deliver on the promise to keep subscribers happy and interested.

2. Avoid lengthy paragraphs

Staring at a huge block of text can be very intimidating. It looks like work.

Don’t make reading your emails look or feel like a chore. Break paragraphs up into something easy to digest and scan quickly if needed. You’ll notice our blog posts have short paragraphs that usually max out at four lines for this reason.

3. Write for your readers and address their wants and needs

How well do you know your audience?

The key to writing emails that your subscribers are excited about is to write about things they care about. Do you have a solution for a problem they all face? Have a service that can help improve their lives? Tell them about.

And if you aren’t sure what your audience wants, now is the time to get to know your subscribers.

4. Make sure everything is clean and easy to read

Keeping paragraphs short is only part of what makes an email easy to read.

Bullet points and sub headers are great additions for a more scannable email. If you have navigation links, never put them on the right side of anything (website or email). And make sure the color scheme you are using is easy on the eyes.

5. Be consistent

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Subject lines with a ‘get’ phrase outperform ones that tell readers to do something.

If you write in a conversational tone, keep it like that. Don’t change things up from one message to another.

You should also maintain your identity by branding your message with the same logo, tag lines, and format. A familiar look will be welcoming to subscribers and remind them they like reading your stuff.

How It Looks in the Real World

Pam launched a new email campaign for her pet copywriting service and put her own advice into action. She also followed the advice of Jay White on how to create autoresponders with conversational copy. Here’s how it looks:



And in case you’re interested: this particular follow up has about a 60% open rate and 63% click through rate.

Need More Copywriting Help?

This page shares Pam’s game plan for tackling marketing campaigns, so feel free to check it out to learn more about her tips and service.

If you have any copywriting tips that work for you, feel free to share them!

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Education Marketing Associate (Crystal Gouldey Moore) on Google

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11 Comments

  1. Jarvis Edwards

    These are some excellent tips for email copywriting. There is one question that I’ve been dealing with regarding email conversions…

    Do you notice a higher open rate when sending text emails vs HTML and attaching logos vs no attachments?

    10/4/2012 2:16 pm
  2. Joseph

    Very good tips ! Thank you

    10/4/2012 5:46 pm
  3. Crystal Gouldey

    Jarvis – Open rates cannot be tracked for plain text only emails, so they leave you in the dark when it comes to finding out what’s working and what’s not. Click through rates can still be tracked though, so you could base a test off those results, it just doesn’t tell you the full story.

    As for logos and images, an Email Marketing Reports study found that an email with images can outperform the alternative. However, you’ll want to make sure you always include a plain text version as well for people who don’t read HTML emails.

    10/5/2012 7:23 am
  4. David Hebert

    I would like to add that the Subject LineĀ should also include Free when giving away things as simple as a newsletters or referring them to an article! What an eye catcher!

    Thanks, loved the tips!

    10/5/2012 7:02 pm
  5. David Emil Lombard

    Definitely points to remember.

    I’ve discovered the real secret to fans who await your every email,
    big open rates, & lots of sales…

    …is storytelling in your copy.

    Tell a good story and people will just buy lol.

    The side banner on my blog above can show you
    how to learn if you’re new, & use other master-
    copy writers email swipe in the meantime ; )

    In Your Hypnotic Compelling Copy,
    David

    10/8/2012 6:40 pm
  6. Ayaz

    Hi Crystal! Excellent tips and certainly consistency and giving solutions to your website readers is something where you need to be more cautious how you do this with quality content.

    10/10/2012 2:45 am
  7. Rishi

    I really loved the screen shot. Easy to scan bullet points really helps the reader out.

    Awesome tips – thank you!

    10/10/2012 1:58 pm
  8. Randall Magwood

    Awesome copywriting tips. I haven’t studied copywriting within the last 3 years, but this blog post served as a “refresher” or an “update” of what I’ve been missing out on. Offering the big promise and then clearly delivering is something that I wholeheartedly believe in. Great post.

    10/10/2012 5:43 pm
  9. BW

    Great article.I am a copywriter and i have used some of the tips you mentioned while producing copy for my clients.

    12/1/2012 12:28 am
  10. Matt Brennan

    Excellent tips. With copywriting it’s not enough to simply write well. You have to know what’s necessary to pull people in, and take action.

    12/28/2012 1:47 pm
  11. Andrew Kelly

    You are right Crystal, lengthy paragraphs are very intimidating. I don’t remember how many times, I just did not read the content on the website because it seemed too long to read. I find it that using bullets is a great way to make things easily readable. Also, the writer should use only a little information in the content; information that would REALLY make a difference.

    3/31/2013 11:39 am

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