8 Tips to Improve Your Email Sequence Copywriting

Email copywriting is integral to your email marketing campaigns. Your audience includes people in different stages of their customer journey. You need the art of email sequence copywriting to make your email copies relevant at every stage. Writing copies for stand-alone emails is different from writing copies for email sequences. While email copywriting requires you to focus only on one email, email sequence copywriting requires you to focus on the entire series of emails so that they are relevant to each other and form a chain of emails that flow naturally.

In this guide, we’ll review some tips that will help you write engaging copies for your email sequence.

Table of contents

• What is an email sequence?

• Types of email sequences

• 8 Best email sequence copywriting tips

  • 1. Stick to one mini-objective for each email
  • 2. Use continuity
  • 3. Create anticipation for the next email
  • 4. Maintain consistency in voice and tone throughout the sequence
  • 5. Identify and write for the stage your prospect is in
  • 6. Use CTAs that evolve with your email sequence
  • 7. Personalize progressively
  • 8. Maintain consistency in format and length throughout the sequence

• Takeaways

What is an email sequence?

An email sequence is a series of emails you strategically plan to send your audience throughout their customer journey. Each email serves a specific purpose, is relevant to the customer in a particular stage and leads him to the next stage. They can be triggered by pre-defined criteria such as an event or time.

Types of email sequences

Based on the stage your customer is in, you can have different types of email sequences. Here’s a list of basic email sequences you can set up.

• Welcome/Onboarding email sequence

• Lead magnet email sequence

• Lead nurturing email sequence

• Event/Webinar promotion email sequence

• Re-engagement email sequence

• Upsell/Cross-sell email sequence

• Feedback email sequence

• Abandoned cart recovery sequence

You can read more about email sequences in our guide below.

8 Best email sequence copywriting tips

Let’s go over some tips to follow for creating email sequence copies.

1. Stick to one mini-objective for each email

Each email in a sequence must have only one mini-objective. You can think of it as steps you want to cover with each email to reach the ultimate goal of your email sequence.

For instance, if you have an onboarding email sequence, your first email can focus on collecting basic information about the recipient, the second can focus on giving instructions on setting up the account, the third can focus on explaining your services and products through videos and so on.

2. Use continuity

When you have an email sequence, it is naturally expected that the emails in the sequence complement each other. The sequence must be such that there is a sense of continuity between the last email sent and the one you are sending now.

For instance, you can reference the last email in the current one or even talk about what they can expect to read in the next sequence email. This will create a sense of continuity in your emails and form a chain of emails that naturally flow.

One tip that I've found particularly useful in my work at LVBET is to think of an email sequence as a mini-series. Each email is an episode, complete with a cliffhanger that entices the reader to tune in for the next installment. For example, in a sequence promoting a new product, the first email might introduce a problem, the second email could hint at a solution, and the third email would reveal the product itself.
-Dominik Maka, Head of SEO, LVBET

3. Create anticipation for the next email

Following the last tip, It’s a great trick to have your recipients hooked to your emails by creating curiosity in your readers. You can have concerns or questions in the current email that can be addressed in the next email. It will create a sense of anticipation in the recipients and have them waiting for the next email.

For instance, you can ask questions or give a riddle at the end of your current email and inform your recipients that the answers will be provided in the next email of the sequence. You can even tell them that your next email may contain a special interview from a mysterious star.

4. Maintain consistency in voice and tone throughout the sequence

The emails must be consistent in tone and voice besides matching the brand. It shouldn’t feel that the emails in a sequence were written by different people.

For instance, if you use contractions like ‘you’re’ or ‘we’ve’ in one email, don’t use ‘you are’ or ‘we have’ in the next one. Stick to one style, tone and format for all the emails in the sequence. helps to build authority and a strong brand image.

5. Identify and write for the stage your prospect is in

When writing an email copy, you must understand which stage your customer is in and make it relevant to them. If they’ve just onboarded with you and know nothing about your products, giving them a discount coupon won’t work. You need to introduce your products to them by explaining how they will benefit from your products.

So, identify the stage your prospect is in and write for them. You can also refer to this information to write follow-up emails under the impression that the previous email has achieved its mini goal.

6. Use CTAs that evolve with your email sequence

Keep your call-to-action (CTA) simple and clear. Make it easy for the prospects to understand what the CTA will lead them to. Understand that not every email’s purpose is to make a sale. Keep the CTAs relevant to the purpose of your email.

Also, ensure that the CTAs evolve with the emails in the sequence. For instance, one of your emails can be an educational email with a CTA that leads to your resource page, while the final emails of the sequence can have CTAs that lead to the product page.

7. Personalize progressively

Standalone emails allow you to personalize your emails for the recipient with the details you have on them at the time. Email sequences allow you to gather more data on them by incorporating forms, for instance, and then use the data for further personalization in future emails. This allows you to start with basic personalization and send highly personalized emails by the end of the email sequence.

The same is true for your subject lines, which must be personalized based on your email. You can even check out AI subject line generators like Mailmodo’s that allow you to generate subject lines for your emails.

One thing that stands out in email sequence copywriting is the opportunity for personalization. Unlike standalone emails, a sequence allows you to build a relationship over time. I remember working on a campaign for Brand24 where we started with general tips on social media monitoring and gradually tailored the content based on the reader's interactions. By the end of the sequence, the emails were offering specific insights relevant to the reader's industry.
-Justyna Dzikowska, Head of Marketing, Brand24

8. Maintain consistency in format and length throughout the sequence

We talked before about maintaining consistency in the tone and style of writing your email copies so it doesn’t look like the emails were written by different people. The same goes for the format of your emails in the sequence. If you’re using interactive and visual elements in your emails, try to use them in all the sequence emails if the content allows you to do that.

Similarly, try to keep the length of the emails consistent too. If the first email finishes within a few sentences and the second looks like a long-form blog post, it doesn’t give a very good impression. The designs, font size and fonts used also should remain consistent throughout your email sequence.

Many marketers prefer using email templates for their email design needs to maintain this consistency. You can check out Mailmodo’s template library for such email templates to use in your email campaigns.

Takeaways

While planning a good email sequence is important, having a good email copy for individual emails in your sequences is even more important. You can follow the above tips to improve your email sequence copywriting.

If you’re looking for an email service provider that helps you create such email sequences and design customer journeys, Mailmodo is a great option to try using their 21-day free trial. It lets you create complex email sequences using a simple drag-and-drop tool and offers diverse triggers for your automated emails.