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writer, person writing, cop

Key parts in a professional email

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I got a question about what the four elements that comprise a “professional email”.  I don’t know why the questioner thought that there were four parts.  My best practice has three parts:

  1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them
  2. Tell them
  3. Remind them what you already said

Easy!writer, person writing, cop

Good email message structure

Slightly less flippantly, the structure of a good message is based around short sentences, simple sentence structure, short words and a clear indication about what you want the reader to do next.

If you can achieve all those things, that’s a great start.

More sophisticated messaging can come through with brand tone of voice, longer messaging plans over months / weeks and a mix of brand, educational and product/service messages. [Ask me how to plan your email marketing.]

Drafting and editing email messages

My personal method when creating EDMs is to work through these steps

  • What is the key message?
  • What is one thing I want the reader to do?
  • Then I start writing…. beginning with the LAST paragraph
  • Add in any context that explains the message (in case they are new to my list)
  • Remind them of benefits
  • Ask for the money / action
  • Add a PS.

Then I sleep on it overnight.  Always.

Because most of my messages can be improved and that only happens after time passes.  I think my brain matures the message and having a bit of time after having written it means I can move into editing mode.  That is a very different brain space and a different skillset.

Now I’m not a visual specialist so I get someone who is good at images to contribute here when I can.

Practice, practice

And then you just need to do it many times to improve your skill.

For examples of best practice copywriting for B2B marketing read on.

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Analysis of CEO message to customers

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Writing tone of voice aligned with brand values is a powerful marketing tool.

This email is so powerful because the structure of this message is aligned to brand values

  1. open Reminder of their mission 
  2. Then acknowledge pain
  3. New tools that support their community
  4. Sign off with a humble acknowledgement

The full text

Dear SoundCloud Creators,

Since our founding, SoundCloud’s mission has been to give people the power to share, connect and grow through music.

As the coronavirus crisis has unfolded, we’ve seen a global outpouring of tracks on SoundCloud — with a 50% surge in creators uploading in the past month alone. But behind this creative response, we know there continues to be financial loss and uncertainty for our creator community.

Last week we rolled out our first wave of creator support — our partnership with Twitch, 50% off SoundCloud Pro Unlimited, a resource guide and weekly creator office hours with our artist relations team — to help with the impact some of you are facing. This felt like a good start, but we want to do more for the long term.

Today, we’re accelerating a series of new initiatives and over $15M in direct investment to support creators on SoundCloud during this difficult time.

  • New direct fan-support button for all creators.
    We’ve created a simple button for your SoundCloud profile to connect your preferred way to receive direct fan support including Kickstarter, Patreon, Bandcamp, Paypal and more. Learn how to get this live on your profile right now.
  • $5M in free promotional support for all creators to drive more plays on SoundCloud.
    For the rest of 2020, we’re giving away all of our Promote on SoundCloud inventory. Tag your SoundCloud uploads #GetMorePlays and our editorial team will select up to 5 artists per week to feature with promotion. More details to come soon on our blog.
  • Immediate launch of Repost by SoundCloud, a new marketing and distribution service.
    Independent artists who want to take their career to the next level can now access professional marketing and monetization services plus industry-leading distribution features. Repost by SoundCloud is available to everyone, no play count thresholds. Learn more here.
  • $10M artist accelerator program to support independent creators’ career growth.
    We are committing $10M to help fuel the careers of independent artists upstreamed from Repost by SoundCloud into our artist services offering, Repost Select. Apply here.

We understand our efforts here are no match for the care providers on the frontlines of this global crisis. But we will continue to look for ways to support our global SoundCloud community, so you can keep sharing music we can all turn to in these challenging times, and long into the future.

Kerry

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