At Ultimate Bundles, we send a lot of emails. We’re constantly striving to engage our readers and reward their trust in us. However, there’s a little known truth about how we write our content. Most of our market emails come from a template.
The email marketing templates we use aren’t the kind of system generated nonsense that ends up in your spam box. They’re completely unique and written by a real person, but they follow a “theme”.
Why use a template for marketing emails?
With almost half a million active readers on our list and a thriving network of affiliates, we’ve seen the highs and lows of email content.
To be completely honest, we’ve made a ton of mistakes. Wrong subject lines, spam triggering content, broken links, boring content, if there’s a mistake to be made, we’ve probably made it. That’s why we’re expert email marketers. Every time we make a mistake or try something that doesn’t work, we learn from it and move forward.
In our experience, one of the toughest things to get right in the emailing game is writing compelling content. With 293 billion emails expected to be sent during 2019, how can you write an email that doesn’t become more noise?
The answer is using a format that you know works. You can call it a template, theme, system or structure. The important thing to remember is that you’re sticking to a tried and tested idea that has generated results.
Show me the email templates
These email marketing templates are intended to be used as a guide. Copying and pasting straight into your next email campaign won’t get you far. They need to be re-written in your voice and with the specifics of your campaign.
We’ve tested the performance of each of these affiliate email templates over the past 7 years across dozens of different campaigns. They continually perform. So without further ado, we present our top ten affiliate marketing email templates.
#1 – They’re with me! [endorsement email]
The success of this email revolves around trust transference. Your audience already trust you. By recommending another product or company you’re passing that trust on. The content of the email follows this structure:
Subject: “These guys are great”
Body: “Hey friend, listen, I love what these guys do. They’re awesome. Their product is great.
Here are some benefits.
[Benefit 1]
[Benefit 2]
[Benefit 3]
I trust this company because we have a long standing relationship.
[call to action] Go check them out now!”
Obviously this exact template isn’t going to get you far. However, add your own voice, a stronger call to action and you’re onto a winning formula.
#2 – This is my project [ownership email]
If you ever have the chance to collaborate to create a product it shows you have skin in the game. Your commitment to the product is evidence to your audience that you believe it’s great. So all you have to do is point this out.
At Ultimate Bundles we work with hundreds of content creators each year to launch bundles of eBooks and eCourses. Our contributing affiliates constantly see significantly higher conversion rates when they reference their product as their own.
If you’ve created a product that you think would be a good fit, head over to the sign up page to see which sales are coming up and apply [contributor link].
Coming back to the email structure. If you have the chance to claim ownership of the project, make sure to include words like “me, myself, and mine” throughout your emails. The structure of your email could look like this:
Subject: “My new collaboration project”
Body: “Hi friend, I’ve been working on a project for the past few months. It includes my products along with a ton of other great stuff.
This is my first collaboration and I’m proud of the end result. I think you’ll love it for these reasons:
[Reason 1][Reason 2]
[Reason 3]
[Call to action]
You can check it out here.”
#3 – Hey! Check this out [review email]
The goal of this email is to provide an honest and unbiased review of a product you think is awesome. Verified reviews have been shown to raise conversions up to 15% and up to 12-times more trusted than product regular descriptions!
The secret that we’ve seen work for a number of our affiliates (Crystal Paine from https://moneysavingmom.com does a great job of this) is offering a detailed, two sided review. If there are aspects of a product that you think are weaker than the rest, pointing them out creates a strong sense of legitimacy in the review. It builds a more compelling argument if you can carefully weigh up the pros and cons of a product.
Here’s an example of how this email may look:
Subject: “Honest review of the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle 2019”
Body: “Hi friend, let me start by saying this is another incredibly valuable bundle. There are some real highlights but a handful of areas that aren’t as strong as previous years.
Here are my absolute highlights:
[Highlight 1][Highlight 2]
[Highlight 3]
Here are some of the things I wasn’t as impressed with:
[Lowlight 1]
[Lowlight 2]
[Lowlight 3]
Overall, this bundle is worth it’s money three times over. Go check it out here.
[Call to action]
#4 – 10,000 happy customers [social proof]
No one wants to miss out on a great deal. In fact, we even have a term for it: Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). This social phenomenon is a proven technique for capturing your reader’s attention.
Pointing out the behavior of a large number of people is an effective approach to creating social proof. For example, pointing out that “10,000 other people have purchased this week” carries a lot of weight. All those people must know something we don’t, right?
Your email should focus on the fact that so many people are noticing the product to really drive home that social proof. This is email structure:
Subject: “10,000 happy customers… in just one week”
Body: “Hi friend, if you haven’t heard there’s a new product available and it’s making a huge splash. So far 10,000 health conscious customers have started their journey to self improvement.
This is why so many people are getting excited about this product:
[Reason 1]
[Reason 2]
[Reason 3]
Go here to join the party!
[Call to action]
#5 – Listen to this customer’s story! [3rd person testimonial email]
A great way to leverage on social proof is to tell a customer’s success story. Stories are an excellent writing mechanism for capturing attention.
Framing the customer as a hero and telling their story gives you a platform to weave the product benefits into a more natural narrative.
Here’s an example:
Subject: “Too much value to get through”
Body:”Hi friend, today I wanted to tell you a story about my neighbour. She’s a relatively fit lady. Well, very fit. She’s actually a triathlete. Even though she’s fighting fit, she’s always suffered from digestion issues. Well, last week she came to me saying she was cured and it was all thanks to one special product.
Here’s what she told me:
[Product description 1]
[Product description 2]
[Product description 3]
I was so intrigued that I went to check it out. You should too.
[Call to action]
#6 – Fresh reviews, right now [customer testimonials]
92% of customers read online reviews and testimonials ahead of making a purchase.
Less than authentic companies are sometimes known to create false testimonials. If you’re planning on including testimonials in your emails, make sure to use a photo of the subject, their full name and something to identify them (like a job title). Adding credibility to your source will legitimize the review and convince your audience it’s a real review.
This is what a testimonial email could look like:
Subject: ”Reviews of this great product”
Body: “Hello friend, a handful of my readers have recently purchased an awesome product and I wanted to share their reviews with you!
[Review 1][Reviewer’s details, photo][Review 2][Reviewer’s details, photo]
[Review 3][Reviewer’s details, photo]
Check the product out now before it’s gone.
[Call to action]
#7 – This will change your life [grass is greener]
Painting a picture of the future can help when you want to talk about a product without being too direct. Rather than focusing on the product, you’re describing how someone’s life will be affected by the product.
This can be expressed through how they will feel, what kind of impact it will make on their lifestyle or the particular parts of their life that will change.
It’s also easy to throw in some discussion about how life would look without the product to offer some context.
Here’s an example of how this email would look:
Subject: “Struggling at meal time?”
Body: “Hey there friend, can you imagine 6 pm rolling around and having dinner magically ready. No mess, no fuss, no stress. You don’t need to imagine. There’s a solution and I’d love to tell you about it. It will make your life easier in these ways:
[Benefit 1]
[Benefit 2]
[Benefit 3]
Get out of struggle town. Check it out here!
[Call to action]
#8 – I’m going to level with you [get serious]
Sometimes the most direct approach is the best one. Instead of telling your audience a story, this email style cuts straight to the chase by listing out exactly what the product is.
This approach can be effective when you’re describing something with a high value. For example, at Ultimate Bundles we often sell packages of content that are worth thousands of dollars and contain up to 100 individual products. Simply listing out the dollar amounts, contents and percentages.
For example, this email would look like this:
Subject: “$1,500 in value for just $29.97”
Body: “Hello friend, I’ve got some great news to tell you about. Ultimate Bundles have a super hot sale. There’s 85 e-books on these various topics, 10 bonuses worth over $200, and there’s amazing e-courses. That’s what’s included, but what’s really included is, you’re going to be able to use these to establish a far healthier diet for your family. How much is that worth to you? If it’s more than $30, then this is a really incredible offer for you because it’s only 30 bucks.
Here’s the breakdown of the bundle:
[Value]
[Discount]
[Number of products]
[Benefit]
Check it out now.
[Call to action]
#9 Answers to all your question [FAQ email]
FAQs offer a perfect platform for asking and answering all the potential questions that stand in the way of a sale. By addressing all the legitimate objections your readers may have, you’ve moved them a big step closer to purchasing.
An FAQ email is pretty straight-forward, but let’s have a look at an example.
Subject: “10 questions about this awesome product”
Body: “Hi friend, I want to tell you about the Ultimate Productivity bundle. It’s packed with value, great books, courses and awesome bonuses. There’s so much going on in this bundle and you probably have some questions.
I’m really excited about this product so I wanted to give you some answers to those questions you may have.
[Question 1]
[Answer 1]
[Question 2]
[Answer 2]
[Question 3]
[Answer 3]
If you have any more questions you should go check out the full details here.
[Call to action]
#10 Better get in quick [Urgency]
Scarcity is a strong persuasive force. Using it to remind your audience that they only have a short opportunity to take advantage of a great deal can help them take immediate action.
At Ultimate Bundles we’ve had great success including 3rd party timers in our emails. We provide a motionmail timer for our affiliates to add in their emails that is synchronized with the end of the sale. This helps give their readers a visual cue on when the sale is finishing.
This approach has been so effective that we do it for all of our sales and it often brings in over 200-300% of our regular day to day traffic.
The layout of this email looks like this:
Subject: “Last hour of the sale”
Body: “Hey friend, there’s only one hour left. This is really your last chance to grab a copy of this amazing product before it’s gone forever!
In case you need a reminder, this is what you get with the product:
[Benefit 1]
[Benefit 2]
[Benefit 3]
Don’t miss your chance. Get in there now.
[Call to action]
Conclusion: Give these email marketing templates a try!
We love hearing from you and the successes you have. If you tried out any of these email marketing templates, please drop a comment below and let us know how it went!
Also, if you run a blog or have an email list and are interested in joining the Ultimate Bundles affiliate community, accessing a ton of free marketing content and earning 40% commission on awesome bundle sales, follow this link to join up!
