How to Write Marketing Emails the Way You Speak
Liam Sandford
Liam Sandford is a Head of Marketing, public speaking expert, and 2x Best Selling Author including the book Effortless Public Speaking. He helps ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs communicate with impact to get noticed, grow their career, and build their business.
Marketing emails that read like marketing emails get archived unread. The ones that read the way you truly speak, the same rhythm, the same words, the same warmth, get opened, replied to and remembered. The inbox is the most crowded room you will ever present in, and the only messages that survive it sound like a person rather than a brand.
I have spent 10 years in marketing, and the single fastest fix I know for a flat email list is to stop writing at people and start writing to one of them. This article is about how to write marketing emails the way you speak, without losing structure or the power to persuade.
Why Formal Email Copy Quietly Kills Trust
Formal email copy creates distance. When someone reads "Greetings, valued customer," they know instantly they are one of thousands. When they hit three dense paragraphs of corporate text, they skim and move on. Formality signals "I am talking to a list," and personality signals "I am talking to you," and the reader feels the difference in the first line and responds to whichever one it is.
The irony is that owners write formally because they think it looks professional, when it really reads as cold and forgettable. Your credibility does not come from stiff grammar; it comes from what you know and what you have done. Loosening the tone does not cost you authority, it earns you attention, which is the thing you need before your authority can do any work.
Your Speaking Voice Is Your Best Email Voice
Think about how you talk when you are explaining something to a client you like. You use short sentences and longer ones. You pause between thoughts. You use the small connecting words, "so," "and," "here is the thing," without thinking about it. Your email should sound like that: not a formal version of you, just you. The simple test is the one I use for any writing, read it aloud, and if you would not say it to the person's face, do not send it.
This is the same instinct behind everything you publish. Learn to apply public speaking principles to written copy and the email stops being a separate discipline; it becomes one more place where your spoken voice does the selling. The closer the writing sits to how you speak, the more it lands, because people trust a human voice long before they trust a polished one.
How the Nano Speech Structures an Email
A good email follows the same shape as a good speech: the open, the body and the close. The open is a single line that stops the scroll and answers "why should I read this?" The body is your one main point, explained clearly in a few sentences. The close is one clear action you want them to take. That is the whole email. No padding, no three competing asks, one clean path to the next step.
This is the Nano Speech, the framework I built for public speaking, sized for an inbox. It works for the same reason it works on stage: it forces you to know what your one point is before you start typing. Most weak emails are weak because the writer had three half points and hoped one would land. Pick the one that matters most and build the whole email around it.
How to Write an Open That Earns the Body
Your first sentence has one job: answer the question every reader is silently asking, which is "is this about me?" Lead with something they care about and they read the second line; lead with your company news and they are gone. "Struggling to fill your calendar with the right clients?" earns the next sentence. "We are excited to announce" does not, because it is about you at the exact moment the reader is deciding whether to care.
The subject line is the open before the open, and it obeys the same rule. It has to earn the click against dozens of others, so it needs a real hook: a question, a specific promise, a curiosity gap. And it has to match the email underneath it, because a clickbait subject on a formal email breaks trust the instant the reader opens it. Set the tone in the subject and keep the promise in the body.
Why One Clear Point Beats Three
Your email body should make one point, not three, and certainly not five. Everything else is elaboration on that single idea. State the point in the open, explain why it matters in the body, give one example or reason, and stop. If you have several things to say, that is several emails, not one email trying to carry them all. Clarity beats comprehensiveness every time, because a reader who has to work out which of your five points matters usually decides none of them do.
This is where a story earns its place. Rather than list three benefits, tell one short story that makes a single point land, because a story about a real situation sticks where a list slides off. It is the same reason storytelling belongs at the heart of your marketing: the reader remembers the person in the story and quietly casts themselves in the same role, which is worth more than any bullet list of features.
Why Short Sentences and White Space Do the Heavy Lifting
Email is not the place for winding, sophisticated sentences. Long ones tire the reader; short ones feel punchy and scan easily, which matters because most people read email half distracted and on a phone. Aim for a short average, then vary it: some sentences can be three words, others longer, but keep the overall rhythm quick. That variation is exactly the pacing a good speaker uses to hold a room, moved onto the page.
White space does similar work. A wall of text is a wall nobody climbs, so break it up: short paragraphs, single sentence paragraphs where they land, blank lines between them, the occasional list. The more air on the screen, the more likely someone reads to the end. White space is not wasted space; it keeps a skimmer moving down to your close.
How to End With One Clear Action
Readers do not want a menu; they want to be told the next step. So give them one call to action, one link, one instruction. "Reply and let me know" or "book a call here" beats "you can book a call, download our guide, or join our newsletter," because a single clear action converts better than a spread of options, even when a few people might have preferred one of the others. Every extra choice is a chance to do nothing, and most readers, faced with several options, default to exactly that.
Make the one action obvious and make it easy. Say plainly what happens when they click, and put nothing next to it competing for the same attention. The close is where the whole email either pays off or leaks away, and a single, confident ask turns a nice read into a result.
Why Your Email Voice Has to Match Everywhere Else
When someone watches you speak, reads your content, and then gets an email from you, they should recognise the same person: the same tone, the same structure, the same personality. That consistency builds trust, because a prospect who meets one voice across every touchpoint forms a single clear impression rather than three fuzzy ones. A warm speaker who sends cold emails creates a small jolt of doubt, and doubt is where interest quietly dies.
That consistency has to run all the way into the sales conversation too, which is why it pays to align your sales and marketing message so nobody feels a jarring change of voice on the way to becoming a client. It is the same principle that runs through public speaking for business growth: one voice, carried consistently, makes all your marketing feel like it belongs to a single trustworthy person.
Frequently Asked Questions About Writing Marketing Emails
How long should my marketing email be?
For most marketing emails, aim for around 150 to 200 words, which is roughly two short paragraphs plus a call to action. Some emails can run longer if they are telling a story or going deep on a topic, but shorter usually converts better simply because more people finish reading it. Write what the point needs, then cut it back, and check the length before you hit send.
Should I use "you" or "we" in my email copy?
Lean on "you" as much as you can, because you are writing to a person, not addressing a company. "You will see results" lands harder than "our clients see results," and "here is something that will help you" beats "we have produced a new resource." The more the email is about the reader and their situation, the more it feels written for them, which is the whole game.
Can I write a longer email when I am explaining something complex?
Yes, as long as you add structure. Use subheadings, short paragraphs and plenty of white space, and a longer email with strong structure will outperform a shorter one that is dense and unbroken. Length is rarely the real problem; scannability is. If a complex email is easy to move through, people will happily read to the end.
How formal should my sign off be?
Match it to the tone of the email. If the email is warm and conversational, the sign off should be too, so something like "cheers" fits better than a stiff "best regards." The close is the last thing they read, and a sudden lurch into formality at the end undoes the human tone you built in the body. Keep the voice consistent right to the final line.
TL;DR: How to Write Marketing Emails the Way You Speak
Marketing emails work when they sound like one person helping another with something the reader already cares about, not like a brand broadcasting to a list.
Readers skim the inbox for anything that feels personal and useful, and corporate sounding emails get deleted before they are read.
Write in the voice you would use talking to one specific person you genuinely want to help.
Lead with what is useful to them, not with what is exciting for you.
Short, direct, reader focused emails outperform long, polished, brand voice ones almost every time.
The reader is asking "is this for me?" on every line, so make sure each line earns the yes.
More From Liam Sandford
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