Are you deciding whether or not to hire an eCommerce email copywriter or struggling to write your own?
Email marketing is hands down one of your best bets for increasing revenue from your online store.
But, as with all things copywriting, it can be difficult to write persuasive emails that get people to BUY.
That’s why, in today’s post, I’ll share 9 tips to make your emails 10x more effective.
That way, you can be your OWN eCommerce mail copywriting.
Let’s dive into the tips.
9 Steps to Become an Ecommerce Email Copywriter
When you’re trying to use email to grow your ecommerce store, it can be difficult to get started. At times, sending emails with limited results is discouraging, and most budding email marketers simply give up before they’ve “cracked the code.”
That’s why we’re going to walk you through step-by-step how you can see more success with your ecommerce copy.
Before we get started, though, let’s get clear on one thing: copywriting for ecommerce is usually more about getting sales than it is about getting other conversions (like having people join a mailing list, attend a webinar, simply increasing retention, etc.).
While there are always exceptions to every solid email strategy, your focus should be on how your copy can generate the most revenue. That way, you can scale your (or your clients’) ecommerce business in a more impactful way.
With that in mind, let’s jump to our 9 steps to becoming a successful ecommerce email copywriter.
1) Test Plain-text vs. HTML-based emails
This is something that you should begin testing from Day One (and something even professional copywriters sometimes forget to experiment with).
You probably know the differences between plain-text vs. HTML-based emails by now.
**Plain-text:**
These are often visually boring but more likely to end up in your subscriber’s primary inbox, which makes sense (how often does anyone send code-based emails to friends and family?).
When you’re just starting out and trying to improve your emails’ delivery health, going with a good ol’ fashioned plain-text email might just be the way to go. That said, it’s harder to pitch multiple products via plain-text, and even harder to get people excited about your products without images.
**HTML-based:**
These tend to look way better and get people to engage with your content. They look something like this (example by Rhone):
The only problem is these usually end up in the Promotions folder, which means they’re almost never seen. Plus, you need to make sure that the email looks good across multiple devices, which can be a big pain.
I think the smartest thing a company could do is start A/B testing the differences in opens, clicks, AND sales from Day 1.
Here’s how: design a really cool HTML-based template and send it to half your email list. Then take the copy from that campaign and redraft it in plain-text and send it to the other half.
Do this for several weeks/months to look for any apparent trends.
The results will be different from niche to niche. My *hunch* is that plain-text will get higher opens, but HTML-based will get more sales for most brands.
But like everything else in copywriting, you simply won’t know until you test it for yourself.
2) Create ONE Call to Action for Your Email
One of the biggest mistakes I see copywriters make is adding too many CTA’s to their emails. Usually this is done when pitching various products in the same campaign, but you can sometimes overload your reader with too many options.
Then your customers get hit with “paralysis by analysis” as they choose between the many CTA’s in your campaign.
A better approach is to get your emails to have a single CTA that takes readers where you want them to go. In most cases, that’s to a specific product page, but it can also be to your general store.
Here’s a great example from Starbucks:
Though they have LOTS of things to tempt customers with, they use a long, HTML-based email to send people to a landing page with the single CTA, “Let’s Play.”
3) Keep Ecommerce Emails SHORT
As you get better at creating emails (or, more accurately, writing email copy), and old adage frequently presents itself: less is more.
Make sure that your messaging is razor-sharp and focused on the benefits of whatever your products offer. You want to answer the question, “What’s in it for THEM” as quickly as possible.
In HTML-based emails, this is a little easier. You can use large, colorful fonts with stylish headings to grab your readers attention. Those can be fun hooks to write. Here’s a little teaser from the Starbucks email (used in the example above):
They tease customers by gamifying the email, leaving readers to wonder how they can play “Road to Paradise” ($20 says you’re going to Google that later today 😉).
Plain-text emails are a bit tougher, though not impossible. You’ll need to craft a really good “hook” that sucks your reader in from the start.
I typically write these hooks last.
That’s because I find it easier to come up with a hook after I’ve given the product a bit of thought. So I’ll write the body of the email to include the benefits of the product, and a hook (more often than not) organically comes through during that process.
4) Write Your Subject Lines Last
Most people write their emails in the order people will read them:
- Subject
- Preview text
- Email “hook”
- Email body
Personally, I modify that order:
- Email body
- Email “hook”
- Subject
- Preview text
Here’s why…
We already discussed that it’s easier to write the “hook” after the body (if you missed that, head back to tip #3).
Once you’ve written the email body and the hook, it’s typically easier to come up with a subject line that will flow into your hook. Plus, it helps me separate the specific task of each element:
- Subject line: Get people to open the email (and that’s it)
- Preview text: Support the subject line to boost opens (and that’s it)
- Email “hook”: Engage the reader enough to keep them reading (and that’s it)
- Email Body: To get people to click-through to your single CTA (and that’s it)
Notice that each piece of the email has one (and only one) job to do.
When you write emails in the order people read them, it’s easy to forget this. But by switching the order around, you’re more likely to remember the specific job for each part.
But what kind of subject lines work best for ecommerce? Unfortunately, it depends.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what subject lines will get the most interest. It’ll vary from niche to niche. Some audiences love discounts, some love product launches, and others like subject lines that don’t look like an attempt to sell anything.
One thing you can do is start breaking up your subject lines into categories and test them. That way, you can identify trends in what your audience likes.
Here’s the formula that I use for each ecommerce email I write for clients:
- Dry: Just say what the deal is.
- Fun: Get a bit creative with it.
- Punchy: Play off the “hook” in your subject line a little more directly.
- BoB: “Breakthrough or bust.” This is where you push the limits of your brand’s voice and try to make a splash (if you’re doing this right, you should be nervous to hit “send.”
Then I A/B test “Dry” and “Fun” subject lines for a month. Whichever style seems to work best, I A/B test against “Punchy.”
And for people who never open the email, I resend my ecommerce campaign with a “BoB” subject line.
Again, it all comes down to testing what YOUR audience responds to most.
5) Add a Bit of Social Proof (When Appropriate)
It’s no secret that social proof can make or break your sales. When people see how popular your products have been for others, they’re much more likely to take action.
If you’re using HTML-based emails, it’s easy to add testimonials, quotes, 5-star reviews, and other forms of social proof. You can do that directly in the email campaign.
The mattress company Casper is great at this:
They aren’t shy about adding user-generated content (UGC) to their emails, particularly with social media testimonials.
When you send a plain-text email, though, you’re more likely to stick with quotes or testimonials from customers (usually you visually separate these in italics to draw readers to it). A good place for these is either right at the beginning of the email (as the “hook”) or in the P.S. section of your email.
6) Optimize Your Landing Page
The best email copy on the planet won’t lead to any conversions if your landing pages don’t perform. Remember, email copywriting isn’t a silver bullet: it’s part of a larger marketing campaign with many pieces.
One of the most important parts to this process is the landing page you’re sending people to.
Make sure it looks professional, describes your product, uses high-quality images, and is loaded with social proof. And if you really want to optimize your landing pages, you can use various tools to A/B test its performance.
Free tools like Google Optimize and HotJar are great.
Google Optimize allows you to run multivariate tests (several A/B tests at the same time) to see what changes increase conversions/sales.
HotJar has a suite of tools like heat maps, session recordings, survey collectors, and more. This allows you to understand how people are behaving on your website so you can make the appropriate changes to your landing page.
A great place to start is setting up Google Optimize on your site. Then run HotJar and look at both session recordings/heat maps to understand where your visitors are experiencing the most friction.
This gives you some data to start creating tests with Google Optimize so you’re not just taking stabs in the dark. Instead, you’re creating a data-backed strategy for building a landing page.
That way, when your ecommerce email copy is polished, you’ll see higher conversions when you send users to that page.
7) Find the Best Send Times for YOUR Audience
So far, we’ve talked a lot about A/B testing. Honestly, most of copywriting comes down to how effectively you can track the success of your campaigns.
One A/B test you should definitely run has to do with “sending times.” That refers to when you send your emails (both the day of the week and the time of day).
This is important because your audience might engage with their emails at different times of day. Perhaps you have some clients in North America, and others in Europe. Sending an email to both groups at the same time will likely exclude half your audience from receiving it at the perfect time.
Fortunately most email service providers (ESP) have tools that let you send times based on your subscribers’ region (you can send emails at 3:00 PM local time, for example, which means all users would get it at 3:00 pm for them).
You’ll still want to A/B test the best times/days of the week, though. This can be a tedious process and one that takes several months to really crack. You need to test one day and one time for several weeks, then change things up and compare the results.
Sound exhausting? It is.
That said, in 6 months you’ll still be sending emails, right?
The only difference is whether or not you’ll have done the work, tested the best sending times, and achieved higher conversion from your ecommerce store.
8) Automate Where You Can
A great tactic for increasing sales from your ecommerce store is to automate email drip series.
“Drip series” are when you have pre-scheduled email sequences going out to certain segments of your audience. A great example of this would be like when someone makes an initial purchase. You might create an automated email with a higher-priced item from your store for an upsell.
Over time, you can get pretty sophisticated with these automations and use an ESP’s dynamic text function to trigger specific product recommendations. You can also use emails to collect user feedback, product reviews, testimonials, and more (which, in turn, will give you loads of social proof to boost sales even further).
Most ESPs come with these automated triggers and are fairly easy to configure. Most marketers don’t make great use of these automations, though, simply because there are too many option.
That why it’s best to start small.
Start by choosing one product from your ecommerce store. Then you can create a series of 2–3 follow-up emails that pitch related products.
You can even configure rules to remove people from the campaign as soon as they engage (that way, you don’t send too many upsell offers to the same person).
9) Test, Track, & Tweak EVERYTHING
This tip may be last but it’s far from the least important. In fact, it might be the cornerstone to your email copywriting strategy.
You need to track the results of your campaigns so you can tweak future emails. When you track the results of your marketing efforts, you’ll soon start to see trends in the data.
These trends are useful for every step of the copywriting process, from choosing a subject line to writing the perfect “PS” section. Honestly, most copywriting comes down to the following steps:
- Test
- Track
- Tweak
- Repeat
If you can consistently go through those 4 steps fo each email campaign, you’ll see conversions lift much more quickly.
And that’s all for today! These have been 9 expert tips to become your very own ecommerce email copywriter.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you should definitely check out the following resources:
- Learn to Write by Copying (+3 Ways to Do It Ethically)
- 9 Expert Tips to Explode Your Lead Generation Copy
- Copywriting Pitches: 5 Steps for the Perfect Sales Pitch
These articles will have even more information that you can use to create stronger copy that (actually) converts!)
