Instantly applicable copywriting tips for emails that convert

What does a good email consist of?

1. First and foremost, you should have a good idea of who your target group is. To whom are you sending an email? What do they consider important? It makes little sense to send a dog owner an email about the major trends in cat food, don’t you think?
2. The first thing your contacts see is the headline. In other words, your title and subject line. If this is sufficiently attractive, it will draw your contact in. Keep it short and simple, that is the message.
3. Provide focused content with a clear object. Loose bits of text without any coherence will not help you a lot in email marketing. Quality is more important than quantity.

Is the general newsletter the right medium for you?

The name says it all: in a newsletter, the emphasis is on the news in the email. You combine several articles and send them to your contacts. Your news is the product, providing information is your aim.

Depending on how the respective media are positioned, we can see what type of content they convey. With in-depth content you will get more text into your mailbox and fewer images. Besides, the titles will not catch the eye immediately, in contrast to sensational news, where everything is about the clicks. These emails have large images with prominent titles and little or no text.

The general newsletter has one major drawback

How do you organise this kind of email? You need to prepare and structure content. Indirectly, you will give a value judgment on each article. The article at the top will probably be the most important. Consequently, your articles have to vie for the reader’s attention. At the top, you will place the articles of which you think they will score best; at the bottom will be the articles the reader will hardly pay any attention to.

Several tips for a better newsletter

Via your Flexmail account, you will get a visual overview of the score of every link or CTA in your email as standard. If you monitor this closely, you will get an idea of how to optimise its use.

We recommend that emails should not contain more than five articles. Otherwise they will be too long, and your recipient’s attention will diminish. Mailing more frequently with less content is a better approach; it prevents you from competing with yourself.

Try to figure out if specific target groups click certain articles or which subjects always score better.

Do not forget that attention wears off quickly. This is why you have to wonder time and time again what it is you are communicating in the first place. Is the news you are sending really news? Or are you trying to squeeze in some promotions?

Anatomy of an email

You are not the only one sending emails. Your contact’s mailbox is crammed with emails from other senders. You are just one of many, so you need to ensure you get noticed. Read on to find out how this can be done.



The anatomy of an email can be divided into two parts: before the opens and after the opens.

Before your email is opened, your contacts can see the sender, the subject and the preheader. After clicking, they can see the title, the body and the call to action. But how do you get them to click your email among all the other emails?

First of all, remember that your contacts do NOT read. They scan your text and only when something catches their attention, they will take the trouble to read it word for word. Even then, they do not want to read a long text, so keep it short and concise. Use small text blocks with catchy titles that draw your readers’ attention.

Begin with the end. Start with your call to action. What do you want from your readers? What is your object? Are you offering a promotion, and do you want them to buy? Or do you want to provide information and make them click to your website to read something? So many questions! The answers will help you create the irresistible email.

An effective subject leads to more opens

Once you know what your email is about, you can start enticing your contacts. Initially, you do this with your subject. You want to catch your contacts’ attention and make them click, remember?

You will not find the perfect title just like that. Make as many variants as possible. Next, it is a matter of deleting and eliminating until you have found the perfect title that will convert your contact into a reader.

The words you choose play a crucial role in the process. The subject line is the equivalent of the header of your email. It has to inspire your readers to the extent that they open your email. Otherwise your email will remain unnoticed and all the time and effort you have put into it will be wasted. You have to make them curious. Show rather than tell the message.

You can also test your subject line in another way: via AB testing. In your Flexmail account, you can send two titles to a limited number of random contacts. The system will select the title that scores best and send it to the other contacts. This is the best guarantee that you choose the best title.

Think of an intriguing preheader

When your header makes your readers want more, you have to satisfy them with your preheader. This is a foretaste of your content and has to motivate the reader to open your email. Use it to give them some idea of what your content is about. Do not forget it is not always shown, so your subject has to stand out sufficiently by itself. Do not waste the opportunity with useless information, such as mentioning that a website is available too. They will find out once they have clicked through.

Create an interesting body

You want your email to come across as personal. Address the respective person. Use ‘I’ and ‘you’ but avoid jargon. Use language the reader understands.

Focus on the concerns and how you solve them. There is no harm in listing advantages either. Be brief and to the point in the body too. Tedious texts are not read to the end, so save yourself the time and trouble.

Good for YOU, but what’s in it for ME?

Maybe this is a question you have often asked yourself when a company sent you an email about how great their latest product was. Perhaps somebody asked you this question when you sent them an email? Always focus on the advantages to your readers so that they become aware of the added value you have in their life. This added value should trigger them to take action and click your call to action.

We have already indicated that people do not read a text but that they scan it. How can you make things easier for them? More important still, how can you catch their eye? Make lists, bullets, titles, use bold type, etc. Do whatever it takes to sketch a good overview in your email. White spaces are a must, for they sort out the chaos and make scrolling easier.

The call to action – the star of your email

We have saved the most important for last: the call to action. This is the central element of your email and what everything leads up to.

How to write interesting copy?

We end with a few guidelines, for you can never have enough tips.

Always read your text aloud, or ask someone else to read it. Maybe your text looks fine but is hard to read or does not sound convincing. Rewriting it is sometimes a better option. You want to steer clear from clichés and unnecessary elements.

We also want to give you these ten keywords:

1. Stop
2. Steal
3. Postpone
4. Play
5. Structure
6. Spit it out
7. Touch up
8. Sleep on it
9. Speak
10. Send