BEFORE YOU WRITE A WORD
While content is so important, the first thing you have to think about before sending out an email is your ‘voice and tone’ (the way you will write). ‘Voice’ is the overarching communication strategy... And these days, it’s popular to have a voice that is positive, active, plain (but without slang or jargon), genuine, helpful, and a bit humorous. Tone, on the other hand, adds further detail, depending on the particular moment (so, for example, at moments that might be confusing, your voice could become a bit more helpful and clear, while you could try a little bit more humor at points when the audience might be ready to find some relief).
+++ Details
Active voice
In active voice, the subject of the sentence does the action. In passive voice, the subject of the sentence has the action done to it.
- Active: Alex completed the task.
- Passive: The task was completed by Alex.
Words like “was” and “by” may indicate that you’re writing in passive voice.
One exception is when you want to specifically emphasize the action over the subject. In some cases, this is fine.
- Action emphasis: Your account was flagged by our abuse team.
Plain language
Write in plain English. If you need to use a technical term, briefly define it so everyone can understand. Avoid jargon and slang. Similarly, emoji are a fun way to add humor and visual interest to your writing, but use them infrequently and deliberately.
Write positively
Use positive language rather than negative language. One way to detect negative language is to look for words like “can’t,” “don’t,” etc.
- Positive: Once you decide on a service, we can send you a contract.
- Negative: We can’t provide this service if you don’t sign a contract.
AND THEN
You've established a general voice and tone... Now you can dive into the content. Here are some of my fave grammar details:
Abbreviations and acronyms — If there’s a chance your reader won’t recognize an abbreviation or acronym, spell it out the first time you mention it (and specify the short version in parentheses). Then use the short version for all other references. Similarly, the first time you mention a school, college, or university in a piece of writing, refer to it by its full official name. On all other mentions, use its more common abbreviation.
Capitalization — When writing out an email address or website URL, use all lowercase. There are some words that might be traditionally capitalized, but look better lowercase in contemporary language (for example: website, internet, online, email). On the other hand, when referring generally to a file extension type, use all uppercase without a period. Add a lowercase s to make plural (ie HTML, GIFs). But when referring to a specific file, the filename looks better lowercase (my file.gif).
Contractions — They’re great! They give your writing an informal, friendly tone. In most cases, use them as you see fit.
[ain't, mustn't, shan't, I'd've, ...]
URLs — Avoid spelling out URLs, but when you need to, leave off the http://www.
[google.com]
Numbers — Spell out a number when it begins a sentence. Otherwise, use the numeral. Numbers over 3 digits get commas.
[Four score and seven years ago..., We ate 3 sandwiches..., 999 1,000 150,000]
Dates — Generally, spell out the day of the week and the month.
[Friday, October 13]
Decimals and fractions — Spell out fractions. Use decimal points when a number can’t be easily written out as a fraction.
[two-thirds, 4.375]
Percentages — Use the % symbol instead of spelling out "percent."
[99%]
Ranges and spans — Use a hyphen (-) to indicate a range or span of numbers.
[1-10]
Money — When writing about US currency, use the currency sign before the amount. Include a decimal and number of cents if more than 0.
[$3, £4.20]
Telephone numbers — Use dashes without spaces between numbers. Precede with a ‘+’ and a country code if your reader is in another country.
[+310-222-4567, 222-4567]
Temperature — Use the degree symbol and the capital F abbreviation for Fahrenheit (or C for Celsius).
[78°F]
Time — Use numerals and am or pm, with a space in between. Don’t use minutes for on-the-hour time. Specify time zones when writing about an event or something else people would need to schedule (in the US: PT, MT, CT and ET). When referring to decades within the past 100 years, you can abbreviate to the last 2 digits.
[5 pm, 12:01 pm, the 90s, the 1870s]
Possessive apostrophes — If the word already ends in an s and it’s singular, you also add an ‘s. If the word ends in an s and is plural, just add an apostrophe.
[Chris's, wolves']
Commas — When writing a list, use the serial comma (to avoid ambiguity). That’s the comma preceding ‘and’ before the last element.
[this, this, and that]
Ellipses — (...) can be used to indicate that you’re trailing off before the end of a thought. Ellipses, in brackets, can also be used to show that you're omitting words in a quote.
[I wonder..., I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi [...] will be transformed]
Titles and quotations — Use quotes to refer to words and letters, titles of short works (like articles and poems), and direct quotations. (I also sometimes like to italicize these, in order to emphasize them and make them more distinct from the rest of my text)
["Stranger Things", she said: "Just do it!"]
IMAGES
Images have proven to be one of the most compelling and information-dense media available to marketers today. A good image can communicate emotion, transmit knowledge and get that critical engagement that you want. But you have to be careful when using images online, in social media, or emails.
Thinking of creating an email that’s almost entirely made out of images? That's a terrible idea.
- If your subscriber has images turned off, they won't see your email.
- Images load slower than normal; the size of the email can cause it to load slowly, or not at all.
- Not including 'live text' can hurt email accessibility. (screen reader and voice assistants can't read images)
- The email won't be searchable. (subscribers will not be able to archive the email for future searchable reference)
So keep in mind the 80:20 rule (images should only take, at most, up to 20% of the email; the rest should be text).
Also, use ALT text in your images to address the main point above (if images are turned off, your subscribers won't see your email). Image code allows for you to easily include ALT ('alternative') text that describes the content of the image. This is useful if the title of your entire email is part of a header image (the title will always appear if it's also included as ALT text), or if you have specific calls to action and links in an image (see 'Image Links' below; you can repeat the same calls/links in the ALT text).
Background Images
If you are using an image as a background, with some text in front, remember to keep the text dark (or light) enough so that it can still be read against the default plain background color (in case the image fails to load).
Image Links
Take advantage of the fact that images can be links. Often, people are more likely to click on an image than on a text link (which is also why it's good to use 'buttons'; text links that look a bit like images). Even if an image doesn't say 'click me', it can be a link to a general web page that relates to your email (if you have one). And images can include different links at once (for example, 2 buttons floating in front of one picture; this is normally done with the 'image slicing' method).
File Format
Images can have different file formats. These are the 3 that I recommend for emails:
- JPG: To showcase photographs of real world elements, elements and stock photographs.
- GIF: To show any animation or to blend elements, that don’t use much colors, into backgrounds.
- PNG: When you need your image to blend with the background color (image can have transparent areas).
Another 'format' consideration is the use of 'retina' resolution images (this basically means 'twice as many pixels'). With more and more modern displays going 'retina', this is definitely worthwhile (otherwise, your images will look very blurry). To make a retina image, simply make the image twice as large as it's size in your email (for example, use a 1200 p[ixel image to fit into a 600 pixel image location in the email).
STRUCTURE
Brevity
When thinking of structure, consider being concise and specific. Use short words and sentences. Avoid unnecessary modifiers.
Hierarchy
Create a hierarchy of information. Lead with the main point or the most important content, in sentences, paragraphs, sections, and pages. Be consistent. Once you find a good structure, you can make a template out of it!
Templates
While some content types are better served by a unique structure created by the writer, others lend themselves to a reusable structure. Blog posts, newsletter content, and most marketing copy are all examples of unstructured content that will vary from piece to piece. The more reusable your content might be, the more helpful a content template will be.
Consider using a template if:
- Users would benefit from seeing your content multiple places
- Readers need to be able to scan it
- Writers need to be able to create it quickly
- You want to encourage repeat visits and familiarity with your content
If you already have a piece of content that serves its purpose well, use it as a model. Or you may prefer to write a draft from scratch, then outline later based on how the parts fit together. Read through it and make a list of all the individual parts that make up the piece. Then briefly describe what they do and how they do it.
First define the main 4-5 structural sections that are commonly found in structured templates:
- Title
- Introduction
- Body content (which can usually be broken apart into smaller elements)
- Additional links
Look for things like introductions, sections with headings, tables, images, and other elements that could be general (that aren’t topic-specific). Write them out and describe how they inform the meaning or usability of the piece. Consider each element and what it contributes to the meaning of the piece. Is its purpose important enough that every content of this type should include it? If so, make it part of your template.
Structural Elements
Every email newsletter is made up of the following elements. Make sure they’re all in place before clicking send:
From name — This is usually the company or team’s name. It identifies the sender in the recipient's inbox.
Subject line — Keep your subject line descriptive. There's no perfect length, but some email clients display only the first words. Tell—don't sell—what's inside. (Note that this is different from a headline, which you may want to include in the campaign itself.)
Preheader text — The top line of your campaign appears beside each subject line in the inbox. Provide the info readers need when they’re deciding if they should open.
Body copy — Keep your content concise. Write with a clear purpose, and connect each paragraph to your main idea. Add images when they’re helpful.
Call to action — Make the next step clear. Whether you’re asking people to buy something, read something, share something, or respond to something, offer a clear direction to close your message so readers know what to do next.
Footer — All campaigns follow CAN-SPAM rules. Include an unsubscribe link, mailing address, and permission reminder in the footer of each newsletter.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
Sometimes a long piece of copy lends itself to a list of related links at the end. Don’t go overboard—4 is usually plenty. If you can, avoid repeating links from the body text.
And so... here are my related links for you:
Published on:
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
