As an email copywriter, you know the value of a well-written email. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you receive a $36 return. That means one email could potentially result in thousands of dollars of sales if written well. But writing a compelling, well-articulated, and concise email is a challenge.
You must consider who you're writing for, what kind of language they use, and how to create a digestible message. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
You also have to optimize the subject line, make your templates look pretty, and ensure you're personalizing them. While all of this can be daunting, several email writing tools are available in the market to help you craft the perfect email.
How to write emails that get engagement
Writing emails that get high engagement is essential for any business or organization. It is the key to building a strong relationship with your audience and ultimately driving conversions. However, with the overwhelming amount of emails people receive daily, it can be challenging to stand out and grab their attention.
These strategies are applicable to various types of email campaigns, including marketing emails, newsletters, and even personal or professional communication.
Understand Your Audience
Begin by knowing your target audience inside out.
Knowing your target audience is crucial in email marketing as it allows you to tailor your message effectively. By understanding their preferences, behaviors, and pain points, you can create content that resonates with them and increases engagement.
This 1 to 1 approach not only helps in grabbing their attention but also in building a strong relationship with your audience, leading to higher conversion rates. Take the time to research and analyze your audience to craft emails that truly speak to their needs and interests.
Here’s a few methods you can use to better understand your audience:
- Conduct surveys or polls to gather direct feedback from subscribers.
- Analyze your analytics, including email open rates, click-through rates, and engagement metrics to identify trends and preferences.
- Utilize segmentation to group subscribers based on demographics, behavior, or preferences for targeted content.
- Monitor social media interactions and comments to understand what resonates with your audience.
- Review customer purchase history and interactions with previous emails to personalize future communications.
- Collaborate with sales and customer service teams to gather customer insights and feedback for improved targeting.
- Stay updated on industry trends and competitors to adapt strategies and stay relevant to your audience.
Craft a Compelling Subject Line
The subject line is your email's first impression. Make it engaging, concise, and relevant to grab the recipient's attention.
To write a high open rate subject line for your emails, follow these 3 steps:
- Be Clear and Concise: Keep your subject line short and to the point. Avoid using vague or misleading language that may confuse recipients. Instead, clearly communicate the purpose or main benefit of the email to entice readers to open it.
- Create a Sense of Urgency or Curiosity: Use words that create a sense of urgency or curiosity to motivate recipients to open the email right away. Phrases like "Last Chance," "Limited Time Offer," or "Don't Miss Out" can pique interest and drive opens.
- Personalize When Possible: Incorporate personalization elements like the recipient's name or relevant details based on their past interactions with your brand. Personalized subject lines have been shown to have higher open rates as they make the email feel more tailored to the individual recipient.
By following these steps, you can increase the likelihood of your emails being opened and read by your target audience.
Remember, the subject line sets the tone for the entire email, so make it count!
Personalize Your Content
Personalization is key to connecting with your audience. Address recipients by their name, segment your lists, and tailor content to their interests for better engagement.
Here’s a few ways you can use personalization in your email campaigns:
- Name: One of the most basic forms of personalization is using your recipient’s name in the email. This helps create a more personalized and human touch to your campaign.
- Location: Another way to personalize your emails is by including location-specific information such as local events or offers. This shows that you have taken the time to understand your recipients' interests and needs.
- Purchase history: If you have data on your subscribers' purchase history, you can use it to tailor your email content and recommendations based on their previous purchases.
- Company name: For B2B emails, including the recipient's company name can make your email more relevant and personalized to their business needs.
- Job title: Addressing your recipient by their specific job title can also help make your email more targeted and relevant to their role and responsibilities.
Add a Call-to-Action
Guide your readers on what to do next by including a clear call-to-action (CTA). Whether it's to click a link, download content, or make a purchase, a strong CTA can boost engagement.
CTAs are crucial elements in email campaigns as they serve as direct prompts for recipients to take a specific action. Whether it's encouraging them to visit a website, sign up for a webinar, or make a purchase, a well-crafted CTA can significantly boost engagement and drive conversions.
Without a strong CTA, recipients may be unsure of what to do next, leading to missed opportunities for further interaction or conversion. Therefore, ensuring your CTAs are prominent, clear, and compelling is key to the success of your email marketing efforts.
Test and Optimize
Continuously test different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, content, and send times. Analyze the results and optimize your strategy based on what works best for your audience.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, an email campaign is like conducting an experiment to see what makes people more likely to do what you want them to do when they receive your emails.
You create two versions of an email with one thing different, like the subject line or the image, and send each version to a different group of people. Then, you see which version gets a better response, like more people clicking on a link or signing up for something. This helps you figure out what your audience likes more so you can make your emails even better in the future.
10 best email writing tools, apps, and extensions to improve your emails
1. Jasper
Jasper's artificial intelligence (AI) writing assistant is the perfect tool to compose an email in seconds. Thanks to its cutting-edge natural language processing technology, it generates high-quality content that's compelling and concise. Plus, Jasper's AI works in 29 languages.
It also gives you several ways to generate an effective email campaign. You can use the Personalized Cold Emails template for a cold email sequence, or the Workflows feature to create a targeted email campaign.
Top features:
- Templates for email copy: Jasper offers eight tools for emails like Feature to Benefit, Email Subject Lines, and Tone Detector.
- Chrome extension: You can use the browser extension to generate copy within any email app, word processor, or other third-party websites.
- Email campaign workflow: You can use the workflow to create a targeted campaign using features like pain points, target audience, and company description.\
Pros:
- Jasper provides dedicated tools for email campaigns like Content Improver, Email Subject Lines, Tone Detector, and Persuasive Bullet Points.
- It streamlines the entire creation process and provides a high-quality output requiring minimal editing.
- You can tweak the quality of your output based on your brand’s tone of voice and campaign context.
Cons:
- You need to provide a comprehensive prompt to ensure the output is of good quality.
- The credit-based usage can pose an issue if you must re-generate the output multiple times.
Pricing:
Jasper offers a 7-day free trial. It also offers flexible pricing plans: Creator, Professional and Business. The Creator Plan starts at $39 per month.
2. Copy.ai
Copy.ai’s AI for writing emails helps you create clear messages for sales or marketing campaigns. Users can access templates for creating subject lines and writing specific email sequences for a broad audience.
Top features:
- Catchy email subject lines: You can craft subject lines to accompany the body of your emails.
- Email templates: Access nine email writing templates for goals like event promotion, promoting holiday discounts, and sending cold outreach emails.
- Tone presets: Choose a tone of voice from nine preset styles or enter a custom tone.
Pros:
A wide variety of templates are available for writing emails for various purposes.
You can generate multiple subject lines for a single email in the same tool.
Cons:
The output may not be as desired as the tool generates irrelevant content leading to wasted time and effort.
The platform is less robust than other tools, as the output must be heavily edited before use.
The output can sometimes be repetitive, leading to a waste of time.
Pricing:
Copy.ai has a free version that provides up to 2000 words each month. The paid plan, Pro, costs $49 monthly and gives you access to all the copywriting tools. The Enterprise plan offers a private infobase and prebuilt workflows, but you need to contact the sales team for pricing.
3. Lavender
Lavender's email writing AI is a helpful assistant for crafting the perfect email. It analyzes your emails for clarity and precision and gives you insights into social data that can help you build a better rapport with the recipient.
Top features:
- AI email coach: Scores your email and provides suggestions on improving it based on past insights.
- Personalization assistant: Researches your prospect and provides personalization recommendations.
- Team email intelligence: Allows your managers to coach the AI based on internal historical data.
Pros:
- It provides a Google Chrome extension to personalize emails within your browser.
- It scores your email to indicate the likelihood of it impacting your prospect.
- It offers extensive team collaboration features useful for large sales teams.
Cons:
- Some suggestions the AI offers can be incorrect and must be coached extensively.
- The integrations are not extensive, but the product is still in its early stages.
Pricing:
Lavender's free forever plan allows you to analyze five emails each month. But it doesn't provide access to the AI features. It gives two paid plans: Individual Pro and Enterprise. Individual Pro costs $29 per month and includes AI features. The Enterprise plan costs $49 per month and contains integrations too.
4. Detective
Detective.io, previously known as Charlie App, is an AI email tool that helps you craft personalized emails. The tool leverages data from multiple platforms and combines that into concise insights on your prospects.
Top features:
- Prospect pain signals: Research your prospect’s pain points and priorities like financials or company data.
- Dynamic contact suggestions: Reach out to relevant stakeholders based on their company's data.
- Integrations: Offers integrations with sales prospecting tools like Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Outreach.
Pros:
- It provides a Chrome extension that can be used on any website, making it easy to pull data.
- A user-friendly interface allows you to organize information using color-coded tags.
Cons:
- Since the data is company-specific and not individual-specific, the insights can fall short depending on your situation.
- For more robust prospecting, you need to integrate with other tools.
Pricing:
Detective has a Growth plan that costs $50 per month, which you can test using its 14-day free trial. It also offers an Enterprise plan with team features for which you must contact the Detective team.
5. HubSpot Email Template Builder
HubSpot's email template builder helps you streamline and optimize the sales process. With this builder, users can easily create optimized, professional templates that help you send emails at scale.
Top features:
- Template generation: Create unlimited email templates based on successful emails your team has written in the past.
- Built-in reporting: Combine the templates with built-in reporting tools to get insights into open rates, clicks, and other data.
- At-scale personalization: With custom fields, you can personalize the email with sales documents, personalization tokens, etc.
Pros:
- You can send thousands of emails quickly due to the email templates.
- It provides a robust notification feed to view who opened the email and when.
Cons:
- The analytics can be misleading, including open and click rates if the sender opens or clicks on the email.
- The subscription package is comprehensive, but sometimes, you pay for features you don't need.
Pricing:
HubSpot's template builder is part of its Sales Hub. In the free plan meant for individuals, you can create five templates. The Starter and Professional plans start at $20 (2-seat minimum) and $500 monthly (5-seat minimum). The Enterprise plan starts at $1200 monthly (10-seat minimum). All the paid plans include additional tools for sales teams.
6. Gorgias
Gorgias is an ecommerce help desk with an in-built email template builder. Customer service agents can create automated replies based on rules to streamline workflows. It’s purpose-built for ecommerce businesses and helps them consolidate all their support tickets.
Top features:
- Macros: You can create customized email templates with Shopify variables to answer support tickets faster.
- Rules: Create specific rules to automate workflows and assign tickets to the right customer agents.
- Email forwarding: Forward emails to any email ID and answer from your preferred email account.
Pros:
- Macros feature streamlines the support workflow and saves agents time while answering tickets.
- It offers 80+ integrations with multiple channels like Instagram, Klaviyo, and Facebook.
Cons:
- The Macros feature can be hard to navigate, and more resources are needed to get started.
- The app crashes often and also needs to be updated frequently.
Pricing:
Gorgias' email templates are included in all their plans, and there's no free plan available. They have five paid plans. The Starter plan costs $10 for 50 tickets per month, the Basic plan costs $60 for 300 tickets per month, the Pro plan costs $360 for 2000 tickets per month, and the Advanced plan costs $900 for 5000 tickets per month. They also have an Enterprise plan for a custom ticket volume.
7. Lyne
Lyne's email writing AI tool helps you reach potential customers by personalizing your emails well. It enables you to develop the first few lines of an email—the dreaded personalization.
Top features:
- Cold email AI: Use the lead generation bot to personalize your email's first few lines through automation.
- AI icebreakers: Generate one-liners to personalize and connect with your customers.
- Integrations: Offers eight sales-focused integrations like Close, Snov, and Hunter.
Pros:
- It sources personalization data from places other than LinkedIn, resulting in better output than competing tools.
- It helps jumpstart the process of personalization that usually takes several hours to get right.
Cons:
- The output still needs substantial editing based on your company’s messaging and style guidelines.
- The output’s accuracy can be low for common names as it pulls data from several sources.
- The user interface requires some time to get used to as it’s not easy to navigate.
Pricing:
Lyne has a pay-as-you-go plan that costs you $6 for 20 credits. The Custom plan starts at $120 per month and lets you generate 1200 lynes per month.
8. Grammarly
Grammarly is a proofreading and editing assistant that uses AI to help you write grammatically correct emails. As grammar is a massive issue while cold emailing, it provides real-time feedback on writing errors like punctuation, tone, and clarity.
Top features:
- Correctness: Catches common writing errors like punctuation, word choice, wordiness, and sentence length.
- Sentence rewrites: Provides suggestions to rewrite the sentence to ensure it’s clear to the reader.
- Tone detector: Adjusts the tone of your writing based on formality and context.
Pros:
- The tool has a Chrome extension and a downloadable app that helps you edit the text in any browser or app.
- You can add common terms to your personal dictionary or use a custom style guide (only available in the Business plan).
Cons:
- The app can offer incorrect suggestions that interfere with the email's overall message.
- The extension can interfere with the email app's user interface, making writing challenging.
Pricing:
Grammarly offers a free plan that only provides basic writing suggestions. The Premium plan costs $12 monthly and includes all the advanced AI error detection capabilities. The Business plan costs $15 per user per month and includes features like analytics, a style guide, and brand tone.
9. Quillbot
Quillbot's rephrasing tool is designed to help users create more professional emails quickly and easily. It uses AI and takes the stress out of showing off your writing skills by automatically suggesting better phrases to improve the clarity and conciseness of your emails.
Top features:
- Paraphrase: Paraphrase long-form text and rephrase or rewrite it in your preferred tone of voice.
- Grammar checker: Checks your text for writing errors like punctuation and word choice.
- Co-writer: Browse multiple results and paraphrase the results within the same tool.
Pros:
- It offers a Chrome extension that integrates with your browser and third-party apps or websites.
- It has an AI-powered thesaurus that provides comprehensive suggestions.
Cons:
- It doesn't have GPT-3 powered AI writing or editing features that can improve suggestions.
- Most advanced features, like the shortening feature, are only available in the paid plan, even though competing tools offer the free version.
Pricing:
Quillbot offers a free-forever plan with limited features. It also offers a paid tier that costs $19.95 monthly and includes advanced error detectors, multiple modes in the paraphraser, and grammar rewrites.
10. Just Not Sorry
Just Not Sorry is a Chrome extension that identifies diffident phrases in emails and offers suggested rephrasing. It helps you craft authoritative messages that make stronger points and effectively communicate their ideas.
Top features:
- Identify weak phrases: It identifies phrases like “sorry” or “I think” that weaken your message.
- Suggestions for improvement: It also highlights common phrases and offers suggestions to replace them with powerful verbs.
Pros:
- It’s useful for pinpointing words that undermine your email’s message.
- It offers a free forever plan that makes it accessible to users.
Cons:
- Just Not Sorry only has a Chrome extension, meaning you can only use it in a browser—not on your phone or email app.
- It has limited features compared to other competing tools.
Pricing:
Just Not Sorry is a free Chrome extension.
Write high-converting email campaigns with Jasper
Writing a personalized email campaign that gets you leads and revenue can be time-consuming, especially when you have multiple campaigns to focus on. But many email writing tools are available to do this at scale. The key is to choose the right tool for your business based on your budget, goals, and current needs.
If you want to generate an email copy with high conversions, Jasper would be the perfect tool for you with dedicated tools to help you kickstart the process. Plus, it can modify the output based on your preferred brand tone and the context of the copy. It allows you to create more targeted campaigns with less effort, freeing up time and resources in the long run.
Interested in creating a compelling, concise, and engaging email in minutes?
