Short Or Long? Writing The Perfect Email Campaign
“I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”
Mark Twain
Short emails are mistakenly thought of as easier to write. And to be fair, you can easily write a short email–but risk it being done poorly. Well-written communication takes thought and a degree of skill (and time as Mark Twain pointed out) to reduce the extraneous and strike the right balance between underwhelming and overwhelming to land squarely on motivating.
Short…but not too short
Short emails have gotten a lot of buzz as being more effective. Data collected from 40 million emails by Boomerang showed that emails with 75-100 words see a response rate of 51%. Perhaps it’s today’s roving attention or the fact that the majority of emails are opened via smartphone and screen space is limited, but either way, shorter has never been more relevant advice.
The question is how short?
While the above data on ideal length is gathered from millions of email analytics, those analytics are directive, not ironclad. The amount of copy needed should also be informed by purpose, subject, and audience (which the stats don’t take into consideration). Each combination will be unique to every business so a one-size-fits-all solution is a quick but not necessarily effective solution.
Your subject and audience impact the ideal length
Indeed, most people don’t want to read a rambling length of text–particularly if the message could be conveyed more concisely. But the latter point is key to answering the question “How long should an email be?”
It’s critical to take a look at the content you’re delivering and the audience for whom you’re writing. What degree of content is required will dictate how much you push those parameters.
For example, Lyons Creative often writes for audiences in the B2B space–think medtech, biopharma, and software companies. That doesn’t necessarily mean emails to them should be longer; it’s to say that these audiences may want–perhaps demand–more insight and more support or validation for the claims or requests made.
Remember: take the time to say what matters to your audience.
For context, the Gettysburg Address was only 272 words. (And I’ve already surpassed that.) This seems like a fair line to draw for any email: if you can’t get your point across in fewer words than the Gettysburg Address, return to the whiteboard and refine your messaging strategy.
Some questions to consider: What is the goal of your email? Is the subject easily tackled in 70 words or does it need more to do it justice (and not waste your audience’s time with half-baked content)? Who is your audience, how much do they know, and what level of detail and information do they expect? Another important option to remember is that lengthy content can be separated into two emails to enhance readability. This helps allow for concision and clarity in content that may have multiple points to make.
Focus on quality first, quantity second
There is no single approach to producing the best-performing email. Perhaps then businesses will do better to remember these best practices to create a positive cumulative effect:
Tighten your subject line – 47% of people say that subject lines influence them to open an email (and regardless, after 80 characters your text gets cut)
Include a CTA and make it EASY for the recipient to complete an action
Be concise and remove unnecessary words and filler to reduce info overload (which is an obstacle to action)
Leverage the law of reciprocity by giving something valuable first (it could be something as simple as a helpful tip)
Personalize with a name and additional content if possible
Design for easy skimming with a strong hierarchy of text size, color, and placement
Test before you send
And lastly, of course, keep it shorter than Lincoln’s address. Perhaps more in line with this advice is the data from Constant Contact’s study of over 2.1 million customers. They found that emails with 20 lines of text had the best-performing click-through rates (20 lines equals approximately 200 words). This provides plenty of room to create and deliver intentional content that speaks to what truly matters: your audience.