What you are actually paying someone to do
Not write sentences. Decide four things:
- Who is receiving this, specifically — not "customers" but "people we serviced last spring who have not booked since"
- Why now — the reason this arrives today rather than any other day
- What you want them to do — one thing, not four
- What will stop them — the objection, addressed directly
Once those are answered the writing is fast. When a campaign underperforms, it is nearly always because one of them was never answered.
What drives the price
Whether the offer exists. "Email our list about something" is not a campaign. Half the cost of a vague brief is working out what it should have been.
Number of variants. Different copy for different segments performs better and costs more. For a small local list it is usually not worth it.
Whether it is a one-off or a sequence. A sequence costs more up front and is far better value, because it runs for years rather than for one afternoon.
Where the effort actually goes
The subject line and the first line. Together they decide whether anything else gets read, and they deserve a disproportionate share of the time.
What works for local service businesses: specific, plain, and slightly under-sold. "Your AC before July" beats "Don't miss our summer savings event!" — the first sounds like a person, the second sounds like a mailshot, and the reader sorts them in under a second.
Length
Shorter than you think. For a local business, three short paragraphs and one link outperforms a designed newsletter for most purposes.
The exception is when you are genuinely teaching something. Then length is fine, as long as every paragraph earns its place.
Who should write it
Whoever knows what customers actually ask. In a small business that is often the owner, and an owner's rough paragraph edited by a writer beats a polished piece written from nothing.
That is also the cheapest arrangement: you supply the substance, someone else supplies the structure and the discipline to cut.
Where it sits at BayouEdge
Campaign copy is part of email marketing setup at $650 a month, along with sequences and list management, rather than being billed per campaign — because a per-campaign model quietly encourages sending more email than a small local list should receive.
Getting a good campaign cheaply
Answer the four questions above before anyone starts writing. That is most of the work and only you can do it.
Frequently asked questions
What makes email copy expensive?
A vague brief. If the audience, the reason for sending, the single action and the objection are not settled, half the cost is working those out — which is strategy, not writing.
How long should a marketing email be?
For most local businesses, three short paragraphs and one link. Longer is fine only when you are genuinely teaching something and every paragraph earns its place.
What matters most in an email?
The subject line and the first line. Together they decide whether anything else is read, and they deserve a disproportionate share of the effort.
Should the owner write the emails?
Often yes, at least the substance. An owner's rough paragraph edited by a writer beats a polished email written by someone who has never taken one of your calls.