You will be able to write email copy that sounds like one person talking to one reader, with one idea and one link.
Mei Ling makes cakes and sends a monthly email to her customers. Two emails can land in the same inbox on the same morning. One is from a company. It greets "valued customers" and promises "latest updates and exciting offerings for this season". The other is from Mei Ling. She opens by saying three people asked her this month for a cake that looks like their dog. Yes, she can make one, and she shows the one she made last week.
A reader knows within one line which of the two they would keep reading. The better email isn't better because of talent. It was written by one person, to one reader, about one thing. The course "Content and copywriting that people read" covers copy structure in depth, including lesson 4.5, "Emails people open and finish". Here those ideas are applied to the newsletter you planned in lesson 5.1.
Before you write anything, choose one real subscriber and picture them reading the email. Think about who they are, what is going on in their life, and where they read and on what device. Don't picture "our audience" or a group such as "parents".
Priya runs a tuition centre that teaches primary maths, including P5. She might picture a mother she met at a trial class last term. The mother's son freezes on word problems, and she reads email on her phone on the train home.
Write to that person. Call them "you", call yourself "I", and sign off with your name. Avoid "we" and "our valued customers" unless a real team is behind the email. Even then, an email signed by a named person reads better. "I noticed your child might find this useful" feels like a message from someone. "We are pleased to inform our customers" feels like a notice on a wall.
The person you picture also helps you decide what to leave out. For each item, ask whether that particular person would care. The mother on the train would not care about the centre's new carpet, so Priya leaves it out. She probably would care that Priya has added a Saturday morning P5 class, so that stays in.
Every email should have one main idea and one main call to action, which is the one thing the email asks the reader to do. If you have three things to say, that usually means three emails, spread over the next few issues.
This is about attention. A reader who finishes an email with three equal messages remembers none of them well. A reader who finishes an email with one message knows exactly what you wanted.
Links follow the same rule. Keep one link in the body, because every extra link takes some clicks away from the link that matters. Footer links, such as your address and the unsubscribe link, don't count as competing links. Readers expect them and don't treat them as choices.
Priya's example issue is about fraction mistakes, and its one link goes to her worked example. Her blog, her Instagram account, trial class booking and her holiday programme each get an issue of their own.
Sending an email with only one thing in it can feel wasteful. In practice, one idea delivered well does more than five ideas skimmed. You are also batch-writing ahead, as lesson 5.1 suggested, so spreading ideas across issues gives you more to send.
Most readers open email on a phone. A paragraph that looks reasonable on a laptop turns into a long grey block on a narrow screen, and readers skim or skip long blocks. Keep paragraphs to two or three sentences. Put the main point in the first line or two, because some readers stop there.
Use the word you would say out loud: "use" instead of "utilise", "help" instead of "facilitate", "buy" instead of "purchase". Cut words that add nothing, such as "just", "really" and "in order to". Local, specific detail helps too. "Order by the Tuesday before" is clearer than "order in advance". "Before the June holidays" means more to a Singapore parent than "in the middle of the year".
Mei Ling's subject line says two Saturdays are left for December birthday cakes. The preview text adds the dog cake that three readers asked about.
The body opens with the main message. December is filling up faster than she expected. As of that morning she has two Saturdays left, the second and the third, so anyone with a December birthday should book now.
A short second item follows. She confirms she can make cakes that look like a customer's dog. Last week's was a corgi, and the owner said it looked more like her dog than her actual dog does. Anyone ordering one should add a photo of their pet to the order.
Her one link, "Book a December date", is on the last line before she signs off with "See you in the kitchen, Mei Ling". The email has one main message, the December dates, and one short supporting item, the dog cake. The dog cake still points to the same order form. The whole email reads in under a minute.
The quickest way to learn the method is to practise on your own writing. Take an email you have already sent, or a draft. Ask yourself honestly how many ideas it holds, how many links are in the body, and who it is addressed to.
Then cut. Pick the one idea that matters most to the reader, keep the one link that serves it, and delete or set aside the rest for later issues. Rewrite the opening so it speaks to one person. In the activity below you will do exactly that, then put the two versions side by side so you can compare them.
Take your last marketing email, or a draft, and cut it down to one idea and one call to action. Put the old and new versions side by side and compare them.
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