Why Good Email Copywriting Beats Pretty Graphics

Focus on the sell and make good email copywriting your first priority over fancy design

Just like in website design, we are often coerced into creating something visually appealing rather than focusing on what is going to sell a product. However, any smart publisher who has tested an email promotion with copy and graphics will tell you that copy always wins.

In a test this year by Marketing Experiments, they tested an email newsletter with three different versions:

• An all-copy version that was personal and had no graphics
• A graphically appealing version that included the same copy
• A minimalistic graphic version with no fancy header, but still with a graphic button and a “security guarantee” logo.

The winner was of course the bare bones copy-driven email, which lifted click-throughs by 42%.

But why did this email work better than the other two?

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Marketing Experiments explained that there was no distracting graphics. Instead, the reader is brought from a personal hello, to a brief introduction, and then into a hyperlinked call-to-action which guides them to the next page.

Graphical elements, especially large and elaborately designed ones often distract from the message.

The opposite side of the argument is that a branded header will convince your loyal readers to trust what you’re about to sell them. This might be true, but you’ll only know if you conduct your own A/B tests. Some companies have brand loyalists, which make using a graphical header make sense.

In a separate presentation by Dave Chaffey, an email marketing consultant, Chaffey notes that often times a header on an email gives a giant disconnect from the copy of the email. When it’s too big or striking, the user focuses on the picture and discounts the importance of the copy meant to sell the product below it.

Two tools to fine-tune your email copywriting:

• The We We Calculator “counts certain words on your site that are key indicators of whether your focus is on the customer or not.” In other words, it checks whether you use your company name too much, and the word “you” too little.
• David Meerman Scott’s Gobbledygook Grader will tell you if you’re using too much jargon. All you need to do is take your copy and paste it in the box.