How to construct your email marketing message

Once you’ve decided on a topic for your email marketing campaign, you’ll need to craft a message. This is where the hard work begins.

An email marketing message consists of two major parts. The first is the subject line. This is what the reader will see in his ebook even before opening your email. The second part is the body, or the email’s content. It includes text, photos and links that the reader will see after opening your email.

While the subject line might seem like throwaway text, it’s not. Getting the subject line right is the key to ensuring readers open your email. It’s the first impression, and you want to make a good one.

Subject lines should be engaging by giving the reader a reason to open the email. Usually this involves some enticement. So writing “My new book is out!” – unless you’re an extremely popular, bestselling author – doesn’t work as well as “Reviewers call this a must-read.” The subject line also should be short. Don’t go over 30 characters.

The body shouldn’t be wordy and deliver information through headlines, short declarative sentences (use bulleted points if you must give a list), and boldface text. That’s because most people scan rather than read emails. The most important information must go at the top of the email, as you must assume that readers will not scroll down. For the same reason, buy links should appear in the screen that people see when they first open your email. Add a picture but don’t allow it to distract from your text by making it too large; in fact, the larger the picture file, the longer the download takes, and that works against you. A good example of email message text would be:

Enjoy a FREE Grand Canyon Trail Guide on Me!

This week the Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919.

I’m celebrating by giving my Day Hiking Trails of the Grand Canyon ebook away free!

GET MY FREE COPY (buy link)

Finally, the body needs to deliver on the subject line. If you tell readers that reviewers are calling your book a must-read, you need to offer reviewers’ lines showing that they’ve said as much not just a synopsis of the book.

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