If you’ve studied email marketing—or even opened an email—you know that the length of emails can vary tremendously.
However, the majority of the emails you get are likely on the shorter side. Why is that, and is that optimal?
First, let’s start with what many email companies have found in their studies to be the optimal length:
We get a pretty wide range, but mostly on the shorter side. For reference, this blog post is already 85 words, so we’re already well past the lower end of what Hubspot and Beehiv say.
Of course, those studies are done across ALL industries and email types. Does it actually apply to your brand?
Let’s discuss the most important factors influencing email length.
Let’s be honest: some niches just don’t lend themselves to long-form emails. For example, it would be strange for Pizza Hut to send out an email with 800 words. Their emails usually look more like this:
And you know what? It works.
Products that sell themselves need less copy—like food, clothes, or ecommerce brands. Well-known brands can often get away with less because people already know what they’re about.
Target, for example, doesn’t need long emails. They can announce a sale or reveal new products and that’s enough.
However, some niches do lend themselves to storytelling. A fitness coach telling a story about how they bulked up or how one of their clients lost 30 pounds even though she’s a busy mom can lend themselves to longer copy.
Let’s say that you’ve tested your send times and realized that you get the most opens at 10 AM on Tuesdays. That’s a great thing to know—but is it leading to the most actual engagement?
Well, let’s think about your niche. If you’re a B2B, it’s more likely for a subscriber to be fine taking 5+ minutes reading an email at that time. He’s at work, and the email likely helps him with his job.
(That doesn’t mean it should be long; it just means it’s something you can test, and there’s logic to back up the reasoning)
But, think about someone who gets a golf newsletter at 9 AM. Your subscriber is more likely to be at work. Perhaps they’re taking a break and checking their email. If they open it up and see 1,500 words, they’ll likely realize they don’t have the time.
If it’s short and sweet, you’re way more likely to get engagement then.
But that long-form golf newsletter might do really well if you send it at 6 PM, or perhaps first thing in the morning. Weekends are considered down times for most emails, but the biggest day for golf is Sunday. That might work incredibly well for your brand.
It’s all about understanding your average subscriber and how they’re interacting with your emails.
Do you have subscribers who hang on every word that you say? Or are you mostly just selling stuff and announcing events? Both are okay, but you just need to be honest with yourself.
For example, Ben Settle writes a daily email where he promotes his physical newsletter. However, he tells incredibly interesting stories, teaches lessons, and gives his point of view on stuff.
His last three emails at the time of writing this were 2,514 words, 1,798 words, and 1,780 words. He’s an incredibly successful entrepreneur who mostly runs a one-man show.
It takes tremendous skill to do this, so don’t try to force your brand into being something that it’s not. In fact, even if you have the skill, it doesn’t make sense in most niches to attempt this.
Again, referencing those studies above, there are dozens of types of emails, each with its own purpose.
For example, this email from Credit Karma is 72 words and gets the job done:
Emails like purchase confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, payment reminders, and other similar emails would rarely be long.
But if there’s a significant company update that your readers would be very interested in, you could get away with a much longer email.
For example, if the CEO of Apple wrote an email about discontinuing the iPhone, he could write a 5k-word email and get insane engagement.
Now, let’s talk about the action you want your readers to take.
One reason that short emails work so well is that their goal is usually to get you to click through to view other content.
It could be a blog post, YouTube video, sales letter, or podcast. In those cases, you’ll likely write just enough to pique their curiosity to click the link.
However, if the email itself is the main draw, you can get away with longer copy. Perhaps you like to send your blog posts word-for-word in the email. Or, you use the email as the sales letter and the link is to an order form.
Of course, newsletter-style emails lend themselves to longer content. We’ll tackle that now.
With what we’ve covered so far, it seems pretty clear that most emails should be lean. Most brands use email for a quick message with a link to go elsewhere.
However, let’s talk about a glaring exception where short emails are often counterproductive: newsletters.
No, not newsletters as in “any type of email a company sends” and we’re also not talking about “here’s our company updates in a newsletter form.”
In recent years, “newsletter” has come to mean emails where the value proposition is the email itself. These emails cover topics in your niche, give opinions, teach strategies, have commentary, and usually aggregate some of the best content others have written across the web.
They usually don’t sell, and their goal is to keep you reading the email.
Some of the most popular brands are:
Those three send out newsletters daily, which are, by necessity, long. They treat their newsletters as if they’re a morning newspaper, with the primary goal of keeping the subscribers reading.
Across all newsletters on LinkedIn and Substack, newsletters average 451 words in length.
Yet, the top 50 by subscriber count clock in at 871 words per email!
Why is this?
Think about it: if you love a newsletter, a book, or a movie, you usually don’t want it to end, right? We like beefy content if it’s great.
Here are a few examples from pop culture:
People like to go deep on content they love, and it’s the same with newsletters.
Here’s the word count of recent issues of popular newsletters:
Of course, that’s not to say long newsletters are the only way to go. The 3-2-1 newsletter has a word count regularly below 400 words. Seth Godin sends out a single idea each day that’s often below 100 words.
Here’s an entire issue from Seth:
As you can see, there are a ton of different factors that can determine how long to make an email.
Much of it can be summed up like this:
As long as it needs to be to accomplish its goal.
If your goal is to tell stories, teach lessons, and keep people informed on the most important happenings in your niche, then 800 words might not be enough.
On the other hand, if you take an email that should be 100 words and make it 400, it’s unlikely to be received well. Usually, you’re straying off-topic or adding fluff that doesn’t further your point.
One way to keep your writing tight is to use Letterhead’s AI capabilities. It can take your writing and punch it up or rewrite it completely. Schedule a consultation today to see how Letterhead can supercharge your newsletter today.