Email Marketing

Elements of Effective Email Marketing Copy (and More)

Elements of Effective Email Marketing Copy (and More) 7 Comments

Tara Hornor has found her passion writing on topics of branding, web and graphic design, photography, marketing, and advertising. She is Senior Editor for CreativeContentExperts.com, a business that specializes in link building, content creation, and more. Check out @TaraHornor on Twitter for more graphic design and marketing advice.


If you plan to set up an email marketing campaign for your business, it is important that you know of the specific elements that help to make the marketing campaign far more effective.

The difference between a fantastically successful or utter failed campaign can be due to a small feature of your emails. When you know the specific elements that make an email marketing campaign efficient, you will be able to have success with it, but it takes careful planning and implementation to make it work.


Most of the important elements involve effective email marketing copy; however, your list and design also have a part to play in your success.

Important Elements of Email Marketing

There are several elements that are absolutely vital for effective email marketing copy. These elements include:

  • Using a clear call to action.
  • Including an offer.
  • Emailing the right people.
  • Using creativity.
  • Building the perfect subject line.
  • Optimizing the landing page.

The call to action is one of the most important elements to any marketing effort. If you just offer interesting information but don’t encourage action, the reader may as well have just read a news article. Make a call to action something as simple as “Click here to learn more” or “Call us today!” with a clickable phone number for mobile phone viewers.

It is also important that you have something to offer in your email marketing copy because that is what recipients on your email list are going to be looking for. This can be a specific product, service, or something more vague like a value statement that attracts the reader. Make what you offer the most prominent piece of your campaign and keep this part of the message very short.

You also want to make sure that you are contacting the right people. You’re only going to get interest from those who have a need or desire for what you have to offer them. Make your selection carefully because you do not want to fill up your list with people who are going to just delete the email without even taking a second glance.

Be creative in your copy and design so that readers stay interested throughout the length of your email. Something has to engage their imagination. If the email is not visually appealing, people are going to lose interest in it very quickly. The design needs to be unique and creative while also appealing specifically to your targeted audience. For instance, your audience may be women aged 50+ or young couples without children; the same design will not appeal to both of these groups.

The first thing that readers see is your subject line, so think of this as your hook. If you don’t have a well-crafted subject line that is relevant to your email, your response rate will plummet. Make sure your subject line is very clear, and try to include the name of the reader as this is a useful technique for increasing the response rate.

Your landing page is the first thing your readers see once they respond to your call to action. The landing page needs to be very focused and provide the next step in your sales funnel. Provide more information, but also drive the consumer to the next step with another call to action. Consider removing as much clutter from your landing page as possible – you want the reader to be very focused on your marketing material and not get distracted with other navigation elements your site might have.

Questions to Ask

Before you send out your email marketing copy, you need to figure out who will be part of the targeted audience. The audience that you are targeting will be people who are more than likely going to be interested in your business and the products or services that you can offer them. You may want to target people based on specific demographics, ultimately depending on what it is that you have to offer.

You are also going to need to ask yourself what you plan to put in the email and what you expect the person reading the email to do once they have gotten through the entire message. If you want people to read through the message, you have to be short and descriptive, never taking too long to get to the point. Most importantly, the end of your message needs to include a call to action, which basically advises the reader on what they should do now that they have read your email marketing copy.

Tara Hornor has found her passion writing on topics of branding, web and graphic design, photography, marketing, and advertising. She is Senior Editor for CreativeContentExperts.com, a business that specializes in link building, content creation, and more. Check out @TaraHornor on Twitter for more graphic design and marketing advice.

7 comments

  1. I just started email marketing since our blog have been successfully growing our email list. This is by far the best tutorial for anyone seeking clarity on the subject

  2. Hi Tara,
    Your tips on how to formulate an effective email marketing copy will be very helpful for everyone who is aiming to get the most out of their email marketing campaign, especially newbies. I agree that it is wise to create a message that is short, straight to the point and brings out exactly what you want your readers to understand and it is also a must to include a call to action in the end of the message so that it is easy for your readers to have access to your products/services when they get interested in it. Thanks for sharing!

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