Top Language Tips for Better Emails

The Best in Financial Services Marketing

A brand’s main aim for an email is to persuade a recipient to do something: buy into a brand story, support a product and/or service, and ultimately, become a loyal brand advocate. Being able to compel someone to act is an invaluable skillset and having language tips to guide this can be the difference between brand success and brand failure.

In this marketing guide, behavioural communications firm, BreadCrumbs Linguistics, uses Behavioural Linguistics, the science-based use of language to persuade, to:

• Analyse the top 50 financially oriented mailers sent through the Everlytic platform in 2020
• Break down the six key findings from these mailers to see what linguistic elements they all have in common
• Share the (F)EAST Framework – a behavioural writing model for nudging people to act
• Explain the 5-step process you can follow to ensure your communications are efficient, engaging, and effective

What Will I Learn in the Guide?

• Behavioural Linguistics in Direct Marketing: This guide focuses on the linguistic elements that correlate with mailer engagement success using the framework of Behavioural Linguistics; a science that looks at how language influences action. In this case, the action wanted was for mailer recipients to a) open the mailer and b) engage with the communication by clicking at least one link in the mailer.
• The Six Key Findings from the Analysis: We analysed the top 50 best-performing emails sent in the financial services space in South Africa in 2020. These mails were sent from nine organisations to over 2 million recipients. The findings we share look at:
  1. The Use of Pronouns: The top 15 most frequent words used and what this reveals about their communication
  2. Personalisation and Timing: If personalisation really does have an impact on behaviour and the days and times of email sending that got the best engagement
  3. Readability and Comprehension: How the complexity or simplicity of the language impacts engagement
  4. Poetic Tools and Literary Devices: Alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, repetition, puns, and metaphors – we explore the impact that they have
  5. Ideology Patterns: The type of language patterns used to create a feeling in the mailer
  6. The Psychology of Imagery: The types of imagery and colours used in the mailers and the subliminal effects of this visual language
• Enticing Behaviour with the (F)EAST Framework: Learn about the framework you can use to implement behavioural communication in your brand or business.
• The 5 Steps to Crafting Behavioural Communications: Crafting behavioural communication is something you can learn. We share the 5-step process you can follow to ensure your emails are efficient, engaging, and effective.

Improve Your Business Communications

The link between language, decision-making, and behaviour is powerful. Once you start thinking about your direct marketing communication in ways that are intrinsically linked to how people think and act, you’ll be far more likely to create content that engages and persuades.