How Long Should My Emails Be? Why It Matters (And Why It Doesn’t), and What to Focus On Instead

How long should my emails be?

It’s a valid question in the email mar

As the owner of an email copywriting business, I get asked a lot of questions. One that pops up quite often is — How long should my emails be?

Striking the right balance is crucial — too long, and you risk overwhelming readers, but too short, and you might not offer enough value and waste your reader’s time (yikes). 

My answer: IIt’s about understanding what your audience loves, making sure your brand personality shines through, and dealing with any sticking points preventing you from sending out that email.

How Does Email Length Impact Deliverability?

Email is a tool that has lots of technical nuances. This is great because it allows for a lot of customization (that I love!), but that’s also its biggest downside as well. Since deliverability issues can keep your emails from reaching your readers, it’s always good to keep a pulse on what may keep that from happening.

However, email length does not affect deliverability (whhhaaaat?!). Yup! Email file size does, however, along with other factors — but not email length (as long as you have at least 500+ characters in your email).

So, unless you’re including an email attachment or sending super huge photos when emailing your readers, you don’t have anything to worry about. So if you’re a bit wordy, you can write as much as you want without fear of triggering spam filters.

How to Create Emails that Engage Your Audience

All that to be said… The value of an email is about so much more than word count. Emails have the power to shape brand loyalty and deepen the relationships you have with your readers. Relationships — not a specific email length — will win you life-long readers, so let’s focus a bit more on how to do that!

Be You

Discover your voice. Personalize emails. Initiate dialogues, not monologues, by asking questions. 

Let your emails sound human. 

Engage, ask, and make it interactive. 

I deeply believe how you do email marketing — the language or tone of your message, the formatting, and yes, even the length of each email — is part of your brand’s personality. Emails should reflect your, the author’s — or the brand’s — personality. And that requires you to be you!Send Emails!

The key to building relationships with your subscribers? Just start sending emails. 

It breaks my email marketing heart when I see great bloggers get so tangled up in details (like email length) that they forgo sending any emails at all! 

My biggest piece of advice? Just start — let it be messy. Trust me, you’ll soon figure out what kind of emails you like to write and you’ll learn what your audience loves to receive. But you won’t know until you give it a swing.

Share Value

My next biggest tip? Deliver value 80% of the time and promote your products or services 20%. 

Focus on being your reader’s biggest advocate — your goal is to give them everything they need to succeed on their journey. 

Be their guide, and share all the value you can muster — THEN send a pitch for a paid product.

Not sure what kind of value you can provide to your subscribers? Here are some great questions to help you uncover what that might look like for you. Ask yourself —: 

• What sets my content or offer apart from similar emails they might be receiving?
• How can I leverage my unique strengths or experiences to provide unmatched value?
• Who exactly is my target audience?
• What challenges or problems are they currently facing?
• What are their primary goals and desires?
• What expertise, knowledge, or insights do I have that can address their challenges?
• Is there a common question or topic that keeps coming up among my audience?
• Now, what do I want to write about?!

Engage & Listen

Please remember that email isn’t just a microphone 🎤 or a megaphone 📣 — it’s also a telephone! 📞 

Make your emails a two-way street by asking questions, seek engagement, and ask for responses! 

Over time, your audience will acquire a taste for how you write and what you share, so whether an email is long or short doesn’t really matter.

Now if your audience replies to your survey and says, “Send us more videos!” or someone replies and asks, “Can I get a link to the full blog post earlier in the email?” << Do that. 

Listen to your audience, but don’t be consumed by:

• a) everything they want (you’re still the managing editor)
• b) conforming to how you “think” they want to engage with you
• c) what you think you should be doing because of what *others* in your space are doing

Be your own content boss. Create an experience through your emails — provide value and be yourself — and see how your people will find and engage with you (and the rest can unsubscribe if they want).

Examples of Emails In-Action With Different Lengths!

If you’ve seen my emails, I’m not exactly concise…

My personality is to explain and explain, to make email marketing easier to understand — and to add in some levity with gifs and playful language.

If you’re wondering how my emails “perform,” I am happy to report that readers often reply to my emails when I ask questions (though there will be weeks of crickets, so it’s never a sure thing) and readers have told me time and time again that THEY SAVE MY EMAILS. They trust my advice and come back to my content again, “to do what I tell them to.”

THAT is gold right there. Also proof that email length has not deterred my top subscribers from engaging with me. (And for those who I’m too wordy for them, they just unsubscribe and I don’t even know about it.

Now — to give you an idea of what else is all being sent “out there” — here are some examples of varying email length. Each is an expert in their own field and has determined their own voice and email style, each unique to them:

Ann Handley

Ann’s emails are lengthy. So lengthy that I save them when I have a chunk of time to really take it all in. She sends emails every couple of weeks, and they’re worth waiting for. She links to many resources and uses her emails as a primary form of teaching readers.

Ramit Sethi

On the flip-side, check out this short & simple email from Ramit Sethi. He has longer emails, but they’re still focused and have only 1-2 links to another resource (blog post, course sales page, etc).

Ashlyn Carter of Ashlyn Writes

Ashlyn has a lovely template she follows for her weekly emails — a thumbnail of her latest video, a link to the post on her site and links to her other latest blog posts.

Jordan Gill of Systems Saved Me

Excessive gif usage in email? SAME, JORDAN. Just when I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overdoing it with gifs in my marketing emails, I got this email from Jordan and my faith was restored in being able to use our personality in emails.

Jeremy Enns | Known for jam packed newsletters

Jeremy, my friend, you have more content in your emails than even I DO

His Creative Wayfinding emails are full of goodness, and for the right people — those looking to start, grow and monetize a podcast — they are everything you could need and more.

Pros and Cons of Long Emails Versus Short Emails

The effectiveness of email length often depends on your audience, the purpose of the email, and the content itself, but, there are general pros and cons for both long and short emails!

Long Email — Pros

• Allows you to tell a more comprehensive story, give all the relevant details, and fully flesh out your idea. 
• A long, personal story can create a deeper connection with your audience by offering insights into your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
• If you’re promoting a product or service, a longer email can give you space to cover all its features, benefits, and testimonials.

Long Email — Cons

• Longer emails may deter some readers from opening future emails if they feel consistently overwhelmed by the content length.
• Readers might skim through the content and miss crucial information.
• Longer emails take more time to write, edit, and proofread.

Short Email — Pros

• Concise emails can train readers to expect quick reads, possibly leading to higher open rates.
• Short emails can convey a single, focused message without distractions.
• Shorter emails are, well, quicker to write, edit, and send out.

Short Email — Cons

• They might not provide enough context or detail, leading to potential misunderstandings or unanswered questions.
• If not crafted well, short emails can come across as curt or impersonal.
• There might be fewer opportunities to engage the reader with additional content, links, or calls to action.
• If you’re trying to persuade or sell, a short email might not give you enough space to make a compelling case.

At the end of the day, there are pros and cons to any length. You have to decide what makes the most sense for your brand and lean all the way into it. Whatever you choose — own it!

Alright, Here’s The Secret to the Perfect Email Length

There really isn’t one, sorry! The truth is that no matter HOW you share with your readers, they’ll grow accustomed to your communication style — and hopefully love it. 

But at the end of the day, the perfect email is one that’s long enough for you to:

• Share what’s important — your One Big Idea — and leave out what’s not. If you have more ideas, write more emails.
• Consider including supporting elements — like formatting, links, gifs and photos — but ax them if they distract from the main message.
• Support your big goals. If your goals include sending people back to your site for SEO and traffic, your emails can be shorter with a link to your blog. Or if your email newsletter has exclusive content, chock it full of good stuff readers can’t get anywhere else.

Being an online business owner or blogger is hard enough without wondering, “How could this go wrong… or not connect… or be too long… or have too many gifs.” 

Just write the email. Be yourself. Share value. Have fun. Connect with your readers authentically! Ready? Let’s make a plan to make it happen.

Tailoring your emails isn’t about fitting into a mold. It’s about understanding your audience, aligning with your brand, and delivering genuine value. The sweet spot for email length lies where authenticity meets value.

Leave a comment and let me know: Do you think long or short emails (or a mixture of the two) fit best with your personality and your brand?