10 Email Writing Tips to Keep Your Audience Engaged

Do your customers open your emails but not reply? Is your message failing to engage readers and drive action from them? If so, you are most probably writing all the emails poorly.

Yes, you heard that right. Remember, it matters a lot how you start, structure, and end your email. A few mistakes or irrelevancies can break your impression. And it’s a simple rule: if your words don’t grab attention, your message is ignored.

That’s why it’s necessary to be careful when crafting emails, especially for sales. In this article, we will walk you through 10 proven email writing practices that will help you engage your audience better. Each of these email writing tips enables you to make your email content feel attractive and appealing from a different aspect. So, let’s learn all of them.

What Is Email Writing?

Email writing means putting your message into clear, persuasive, and action-driven words. It’s a way to appeal to potential customers with the help of the right words. In simple words, it’s an art of written communication that you use to make readers take your desired action. 

This way of communicating ideas, thoughts, and offerings is fast and allows people to connect instantly. Good email writing helps you share your ideas, requests, or offers in a way that the recipient understands and wants to respond to.

Tips to Engage Your Audience with Email

Now that you know exactly what email writing is, let’s look at some effective practices in this regard. 

1. Create a Hook in the Subject Line

Your headline is the first element of interaction with your audience. If it feels dull, boring, or unattractive, no one is going to even open your email. That’s why, make sure that your subject line hooks readers and convinces them to see what’s inside. For this purpose, you can 

• Ask a short question.
• Highlight benefits.
• Quantify your offers.
• Add emotional words.
• Create a sense of urgency.

It’s okay to try different things to add curiosity to the subject line, but ensure that you don’t lengthen it unnecessarily. A short yet powerful headline is enough to make people interested in your offer. Here are a few perfectly written subject lines:

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2. Personalize Your Emails

Personalization can make a real difference if done appropriately. Nowadays, people want to feel special and love to be treated exclusively. So, when you personalize your email using different tactics, they are more likely to reply. Therefore, 

• Address them by their name.
• Use the words they want to hear.
• Mention their previous purchases.
• Offer discounts that have just been made available to them.
• Refer to their activity on your website.

Together, all these practices make the recipients feel that you really care about them. Once they realize that you offer value, they don’t hesitate to respond to your emails. For instance, you can say:

“Eddy, we noticed you checked out our new running shoes. Check out this limited-time offer just for you!”

This type of personalization in email writing can make a big difference. 

3. Sell Benefits, Not Features

Remember, before buying anything, a question comes to everyone’s mind: “How will this item help me?” When writing an email, you must answer this common question. In simple words, instead of just focusing on features, tell your audience how buying from you will benefit them. 

• Connect each feature to a benefit.
• Highlight the value your products offer.
• Explain how your offerings solve a problem.
• Mention the results, not the process.
• Tell how your service or product improves life quality.

For example, instead of saying “ this blender has 10 speed settings,” say “it offers 10 speed options designed for every ingredient.” When you clearly show them how your offerings make their life better, they find no reason to ignore your email. 

4. Keep Your Text Short

Emails that feel too wordy often lose attention fast. In contrast, shorter text offers more clarity and ease in understanding the message. Therefore, whatever you write, stay on point and be direct. In addition to being concise, use the following practices to make your email feel less wordy.

• Don’t write longer statements.
• Keep a paragraph to 2-3 lines.
• Add bullets where necessary.
• Use a number list if possible.
• Replace wordy phrases with shorter ones.

Above all, keep a simple rule in your mind that you only focus on what matters the most. Less yet meaningful text is more likely to engage readers. 

5. Must Add Social Proof

Another effective email writing tip to increase engagement is to add social proof in your message. After reading your email, the recipients must realize that you are trusted by others and worth relying on. The most effective way to make your readers feel so is

• Adding a happy customer’s quote.
• Mentioning the number of consumers served.
• Incorporating screenshots of satisfied buyers.
• Including real stories shared by consumers.
• Sharing brand appreciations featured on authoritative sources.

Apart from that, you can also add appreciative statements of influencers about your brand in your email as social proof.

For example, you can just write, “See what local fitness coaches say about our product,” and then mention the quotes of local influencers right below this statement.

All these things give your message weight. Readers find it comfortable to reply to an email that seems trustworthy.

6. Enrich Your Mail With Visuals

According to Torie Mathis, a credible digital marketing coach, about 2 out of 3 people say they like emails that have mostly pictures. This is because the visuals break the wall of text and present the message in a more digestible way. So, instead of stuffing your emails with just words, you must add pictures. But make sure they

• Have a good or excellent quality.
• Are sized appropriately.
• Are not flashy or indecent.
• Have been placed at the right spot.
• Add more value to your message.

Moreover, try to add real images of your products or services. Being an email writer, you might ask the respective department for some good images of your brand. However, you can also include stock photos, but don’t use them until you are sure that they are free to use. 

7. Use Words That Spark Action

Every word has an impact on the readers. It might either facilitate or break their buying decision. Therefore, you must be careful when choosing words for email writing. Every word you write should contribute to encouraging people to take action. That’s why, instead of adding dull or boring words, use phrases that drive real action.

• Use action words like try, get, and learn.
• Add direct words in calls to action.
• Include urgency with words where needed.
• Avoid words widely used in common templates.
• Utilize emotional triggers to spark action.

For instance, statements like “Get your free trial today” or “Cash in on limited spots now” can drive instant actions. Another good practice is to make your action words bold or use them in highlighted buttons. This practice further increases the chances of readers taking action. However, make sure that these words don’t feel pushy. 

8. End Your Message With a Gentle Note

Just like the intro of your email, you must end your email in a professional way. While a professional signature helps in this regard, a polite note at the end also adds further to your professionalism.

Ending your email on a warm and gentle note demonstrates that you really respect the readers. This small act might feel extra, but it strengthens your relationship with the recipients. As a result, they feel valued. Your endnote might 

• Offer assistance to readers if necessary.
• Express your gratitude for your audience’s time.
• Invite gentle feedback to listen to the recipients’ thoughts.
• Encourage open and transparent communication.
• Provide exclusive help to readers as per their needs.

A common yet powerful, gentle note for emails is “If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.” This kind of soft and human-friendly ending really wins the heart of recipients and convinces them to take action.

9. Keep Your Message Error-free

Another thing you need to pay close attention to is grammatical accuracy in email writing. It’s one of the biggest email marketing mistakes you should avoid at all costs. Remember, typos and errors are real engagement killers. They make your professionally written message worthless. Even a single linguistic flaw is enough to make the readers bounce back from your email. That’s why you must identify and eliminate 

• Misspelled words.
• Punctuation mistakes.
• Pronoun issues.
• Adjective flaws.
• Run-on sentences.
• Subject-verb disagreement.

Most importantly, you must have a reliable online grammar corrector in your email writing toolkit that helps you find all errors accurately. With a bird’s eye view and an advanced tool, there is no chance that your emails will have any kind of grammatical error. This ensures that the engagement of your message doesn’t get hurt due to linguistic mistakes.

10. Send the Email at the Right Time

Sometimes, even the best-written email doesn’t work. You know what the main reason behind it is? Well, the answer lies in the sending time. The time you send emails on an email list matters a lot in defining whether it will engage the recipient or annoy them. So, be mindful of when you are sending the emails. If you want better results, 

• Send on weekdays, not weekends.
• Try mornings between 8-10 a.m.
• Avoid late-night or holiday sends.
• Test and track what works best.

Moreover, tools like weMail can make the sending process easier and more result-driven for all kinds of your email campaigns. With this tool, you can schedule emails at the time of your choice. Also, it provides you with highly meaningful data regarding the recipient’s activity, which helps you know when readers are more likely to check their inbox. 

Bonus: Choose the Right Email Marketing Tool for Maximum Impact

Writing good emails is worthless if you don’t have the right email marketing tool. Even the best message won’t help you drive the desired results if you are not able to manage your email campaigns efficiently. That’s why choosing the best tool is essential for the maximum impact. A good platform helps you manage your list, send emails fast, and see what works. 

While many email automation tools are out there on the internet, weMail shines as a reliable, affordable, and most efficient tool. It’s made for ease, speed, and more results. With this tool, you can

• Create segmented email lists.
• Send emails in bulk.
• Set the right time for your message.
• See real-time statistics for campaign optimization.
• Design engaging forms for lead collection.
• Conduct A/B testing for better results.

In a nutshell, weMail is an all-in-one solution for better email campaign management. It helps you reach the right people at the right time, keeps things organized, and shows you what’s working.

Conclusion

In short, great email writing is not all about selling. Instead, it’s about offering real value to the readers and giving them reasons to interact. All the above-mentioned tips help you write emails people actually want to open, read, and respond to.

So, we hope that you will implement our suggestions to take the engagement of your email campaigns to the next level.