Give good email

Hello

My colleague and new friend Mel and I were on a two-day course at the Institute of Direct Marketing in Keira Knightley’s strutting ground of Teddington last week, learning everything you could possibly need to know about ‘Effective Email Marketing’. All the other delegates worked for high-profile companies (Adidas, Virgin Atlantic, Sony, Royal SunAlliance – eeeek!), but instead of being intimidated, Mel and I got our thinking heads on, tucked into the cream cakes and felt grateful that we work for a small company. Instead of being lost in a sprawling corporate puzzle, we have a big input into everything that happens at IceBlue, which makes us feel responsible, accountable, and happy to be learning new tricks and techniques every week.

We learnt loads about direct and email marketing on the course (current legislation, browser issues, testing and deliverability, and so on), but as I’m keeping this blog on the copywriting side of the street, here are seven top tips for writing great email copy. Because I don’t want to get into design (and rendering and graphics and usability) issues, please keep plain-text email in mind as you think of these:

1. Write to be scanned, not read. Look up Jakob Nielsen’s classic usability test of how people read online (clue: they don’t) - http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html - and learn from it.

2. Stick to the principle of one idea per paragraph, and use subheadings and bullet-points to break up chunks of information.

3. When dreaming up subject lines, make them hold the promise of useful information. Offering lists of things (’10 easy ways to make money’), asking questions (‘Is your business set to fly?’) and using punchy, intriguing headlines (‘Profits: our marketing guru reveals all’) are the best ways to coax a clickthrough out of your readers. Important: if you promise something, though, you must deliver it. Don’t annoy people, or worst of all, get written off as a spammer.

4. Keep subject lines to fewer than 45 characters – www.emaillabs.com/tools/from-subject-line-tool.html lets you preview your subject and ‘from’ line for various email clients.

5. Make your readers compelled to click back to your website. Saying ‘click here’ isn’t always the best way - always consider your readers using text-to-speech software. More imaginative calls-to-action (‘learn more’, browse our special offers’, ‘find out how’) are often stronger.

6. Be succinct. Remember this advice from Steve Krug of Don’t Make Me Think: “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”.

7. Think like a journalist and write in an inverted-pyramid style, with the main points summarised in the opening paragraph. That way, if people see your email in their preview box, at least you’ve got the good bits in first.

Happy emailing!

Marie

ps. I must be one of the only people in the whole world who welcomes those bizarre, robot-generated spam emails for Viagra and Cialis. The names they’re sent under (let me see now – names like Lionel Slaughter, Koji McShane, Rosemary Dowdy, Harley Kelly, Marlena Riff) are perfect for inspiring new character ideas for short stories and future novels …

Be nice to your readers

Here's a version of the copywriting guide I've written for our clients ...

How to write great copy for your website

People are lazy when reading from their computer screens, so it’s important to keep your writing brief and relevant. A big chunk of text can scare away web visitors, who tend to prefer short paragraphs and lots of ‘white space’. Give meaningful titles to pages, and stick to the principle of one idea per paragraph. Subheadings give your readers a quick and easy overview to a page, while bullet-points are a friendly way to break down complex information.

Think about your users’ goals. Websites often pick up where adverts left off, and your visitors have come to learn more about your business. Think about the kinds of questions they will have, and make sure they can find the answers easily. Deal with your most relevant points towards the top of the page (this will help search engines, too) and always keep accessibility issues in mind. If someone is using text-to-speech software to browse your site, saying ‘click here’ won’t be helpful to them.

Think about your ‘voice’

The text on your website plays a key role in building your brand. Whatever tone you choose to adopt – chatty, authoritative, reassuring or witty – make sure it reflects your brand’s personality and talks directly to your customers. Get to know who they are. Be conversational, welcoming and straightforward in your choice of words, using ‘you’ and ‘your’ lots to speak to your reader.

Try to use the AIDA principle:
* Grab people’s Attention with a simple, catchy heading
* Hold their Interest with easy-to-read, engaging writing about your product or service
* Make them Desire your product by listing benefits, answering questions and giving testimonials
* Inspire them to Action (buying!) by summing up the great things about your product.

Keep it simple

Ditch the thesaurus – don’t bother with ‘remunerate’ when ‘pay’ is just as good, or ‘authorise’ when you just mean ‘let’. Think about the keywords that might drive users to your site from search engines, but be wary of confusing people with jargon. Short, everyday words are best of all.

Be succinct, by editing again and again. Get rid of unnecessary words: sometimes quantifiers like ‘very’ and ‘really’ can weaken what you’re trying to say (compare ‘I love you’ with ‘I really love you’ – which one makes you suspicious?). Stay consistent: is it five pm or 5pm or 5 p.m.? And don’t rely on your computer’s spellchecker: find a fresh pair of human eyes to proofread your writing for you.

Don’t try to be poetic

You don’t need to use flowery, prosaic language to write well: good writing makes people forget that they’re reading. Avoid obvious clichés (like the plague – groan!) and try to use the active voice rather than the passive. ‘We can help you achieve your goals’ has more impact than, ‘Your goals can be achieved with help from us.’

Check your spelling and grammar meticulously, but don’t be afraid to bend the stodgier rules. Contrary to what your English teacher might have said, it’s OK to start sentences with ‘And’ and ‘But’. But – and here’s an important message – don’t use too many capitals OR IT WILL SEEM LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING, and remember that lots of exclamation marks look ridiculous!!!!!

Most importantly of all, keep your writing style natural, and let it reflect the unique voice of your company. And if you still need help, please feel free to contact me.

Make every word work damn hard

Hello, there. I’m Marie – the new copywriter at IceBlue Web, Design & Marketing. Well the only copywriter, really. Having been in my job for three weeks now, and seeing how strong IceBlue is – in design, programming, SEO and marketing – I just hope I can make a positive contribution to the team.

I did wnedor whterher I’d atcaluly be needed, wehn Mtat the dsenegir seowhd me an eamil-frorwad eplxnainig how as lnog as you get the fisrt and lsat leterts of a word splet croreclty, the rset is unamoprtint.

Hmmm!

But seriously, good copy is vital – to a brand, its literature and its website. Accurate spelling and grammar are the most basic parts of a writer’s metaphorical pencil case (the ballpoint pen, maybe, or a blunt old pencil - bear with me!), but they help to engender trust from readers. Why would anyone waste more than two seconds on a site that Offered Everyting 4 1/2 prise, bye NOW? Could a search engine even find it? Would anyone care?

Editing and revisions, meanwhile, can be thought of as handy tools like erasers and Tippex. There’s not a first draft in the world that can’t be improved upon with the deletion of a few unnecessary words, making cleaner, leaner, meaner copy. Business literature is full of empty rhetoric like ‘quality services’ and ‘excellent value’ – but what does such waffle mean?

Good writing makes every word work damn hard.

And then you get the fun bits – fluorescent highlighters, glittery pens, jumbo-sized theme-park pencils with tickly feather toppers. Creative copy can bring a brand to life, conveying the personality and ethos of your business, befriending clients, helping people identify with you and the services you offer. Nifty use of keywords can improve your search-engine rankings, too, but I’ll come back to that another day.

For this reason, I’m working on an IceBlue style guide, making sure that where there are permissible variants in spelling or grammar (are we IceBlue, for example, or Ice Blue or iceblue or even Ice-Blue?), we can have a consistency running throughout our communications. And I’ll apply them to our clients’ work too. I’ve also written a short guide to help start-up businesses write their own web copy, with advice on simplicity, brevity and effective calls-to-action. Maybe I’ll post it up here sometime …

Meanwhile, I need to convince everyone that I AM a nscasseery aiddotin to the taem.

Hpapy wneeked!