Paint pictures with words to get emails opened

There's a good article at MarketingSherpa on doing email right: 12 Top Email Copywriting Tips to Raise Funds.

Among the 12 excellent tips, one especially caught my eye: Create a Word Picture. Rather than label your email with facts about its contents, say something that people can imagine. It gives these examples for word-picture subject lines.

• Use "Turtle Toxins" instead of "We need your help to protect turtles from pollution."
• Say "Manatee Mayday" instead of "Manatees in Trouble: Help Needed Now."
• Write "Click to Save Cows" instead of "Please help save cows from the abuses of factory farming."

Good advice for online marketing. In fact, good advice for any medium. Spend some extra time moving your discussion from the theoretical and abstract to concrete and visual.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, copywriting, subject lines

Comments

[Ted Grigg]

Good copy is good copy regardless of the medium.

This reminds me of David Ogilvy’s comment about wanting to hire copywriters with direct marketing experience. Such writers know how to sell because they live or die based on results.

Superb post with intriguing examples.