Email is one of the best tools to communicate with colleagues, business partners, clients, and potential customers. When implemented correctly, it’s also considered one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for making conversions. Through effective email writing with engaging copywriting, you can send out significant information and product updates to many recipients with a higher chance of being opened and converted.
Email marketing has been around for a long time. It has been used extensively and effectively by large companies to connect with and nurture leads, and ultimately turn them into paying customers. According to studies, 87% of B2B content marketers primarily use email to nurture their audience. These surveys rate email among the top three formats that marketers use to distribute content.
One of the biggest challenges with an engineering audience, however, is that they are skeptical of marketing fluff and are likely to avoid it. It is interesting to note, however, that 27% of engineers find emails to be a ‘very valuable’ source of information, and 62% think that they are ‘somewhat valuable’. Similarly, a recent study shows that 47% of engineers will consider opening unexpected emails in their inboxes. As such, marketers need to exert enough effort in writing their emails to avoid falling prey to spam filters.
If you are struggling to get enough conversions and click-throughs from your emails, below are some tips on effective email writing that will help you appeal to your engineering audience.
1. Use a personal company email.
When sending a marketing email to a group of engineers, it is important to use the name and electronic address of a person from your company. Remember that the name and address of the sender are the first things that the recipients will see before they even click the email. It plays a crucial role in ensuring that they open your message.
Avoid using just the name of the company or overly general email addresses such as ‘[email protected]’. Remember how central trust and confidence-building are important to any marketing campaign. A personal name and address inspire more confidence than a department name. It also differentiates yours from the average spam marketing emails.
2. Write a catchy subject line.
Perfecting the subject line can make or break your email marketing strategy. It can mean the difference between an open email and a mindless deletion (or worse – a spam report). Pay careful attention to how you write them.
One of the biggest challenges in composing email subject lines is the word and character restrictions. Approach this limitation with the mindset of an art curator. You must use your limited space wisely to convince your engineering audience your content is worth seeing.
Additionally, it’s good to avoid certain types of words that frequently get marked as spam. This includes words like ‘free,’ ‘flash sale,’ ‘promo,’ and ‘special offer.’ Even if your “spammy” terms are not filtered electronically, they can activate recipients’ unconscious mental filters.
3. Be mindful of your preview text.
The third element for effective email writing is the preview text. Many email clients display part of the email’s first line of text along with the subject line. It tells your engineering subscribers more about the content of your email. The preview text can be used to support the subject line, summarise the basic message, or feature a call-to-action (CTA).
The email preview text usually ranges from 35-140 characters. Therefore, it is important to pay close attention to how this will appear and what information you want to highlight. Just like the subject line, preview text often prompts the recipient’s next action: open, delete, or report to spam.
4. Personalize your email writing.
Another effective tip to remember is to make your writing personal. And no, we are not just talking about using the subscriber’s name (though that’s a great start – beginning your email with a ‘Dear Sir,’ ‘Dear Ma’am,’ or ‘Hey there!’ can be very standard and impersonal). You can avoid this by using email marketing tools that allow personalization such as personalization tags.
Personalization is also about segmentation. Each segment’s requirements are unique, so an effective email marketing strategy must ensure each recipient gets something valuable to them specifically. Emails can be segmented based on age, location, gender, and other defining characteristics.
5. Create straightforward content.
Engineers tend to avoid emails that go round in circles. Like most professionals, they hate wasting time reading irrelevant text or content that won’t offer them new knowledge. Just cut to the chase, and write in a simple manner that’s easy to understand. The last thing you want to do is make them feel they are wasting their time.
Use keywords in your content that relate to the subject of the email writing. It should encourage your engineering readers to execute the actions you want of them. Furthermore, sticking to the subject at hand will impress your readers with the fact that you value their time and deliver what you promise.
6. Avoid over-selling.
Engineers want to be informed, educated, and up-to-date on the current developments in the industry. That said, avoid over-selling them on stuff that is of no particular use to them at the moment. The 80/20 scheme is a good rule of thumb; offer 80% relevant information and 20% sales pitch. This strategy will not only earn you their trust but a place in their inbox, too.
Make sure that your engineering audience sees value in your email communications. Most engineers receive many emails daily, not only from industrial marketers like yourself, of course, but from their own management and other work-related groups. Consider their needs and make sure you don’t become mere clutter.
7. Pay attention to the graphics.
Graphics are an important part of your engineering email writing process. An email with too many photos or graphics can be too busy and salesy – plus, they take more time to load. Engineers can be impatient, so this may result in them disregarding your email.
The other side of the coin is that too much text can become boring and time-consuming. Engineers respond well to videos, so you can embed or include a video clip on your email to grab their attention. An engineer will be far more interested to be shown the ‘how’ than to simply be told.
8. Add call-to-action buttons.
Call-to-action (CTA) buttons are great marketing tools that help businesses convert viewers into leads. CTAs can be added as finishing touches to your emails. They should be visible and hard-hitting in ways that will make your engineering readers want to click.
Email CTAs can take the form of text links to articles on your company website or landing pages for your services and products. They can also show up as buttons at the bottom of your emails to encourage readers to click. Remember that you should use one CTA per message so as not to confuse your readers.
9. Add P.S at the end.
P.S. (or postscript) are added thoughts on your letters (in this case your email) that can be used to increase your conversion rate. When added correctly, it can create urgency and make them more persuasive. It is more noticeable and gives you plenty of opportunities to optimize your email content and influence your click-through rate (CTR).
A P.S. can be an added personal touch to your message that can help build trust and customer loyalty. It can also help you make connections and lead your engineering readers to follow you on another platform such as your social media page.
Email marketing can be one of the best strategies to build strong relationships in the digital world. A comprehensive email marketing plan does require time and effort to put together, especially when working on your email writing technique. However, once you get it set up and running, you can expect a better customer-client relationship with your engineering readers.
P.S. If you need help with content writing for engineering readers, then get in touch with us today (see what we did there?)
