I get asked this question a lot and I’m not going to be one of those annoying people who simply says: It can be as long as it needs to be.

I know you want straight answers so I’m going to give you something solid to aim for AND I’m going to base it off my own experience.

Before we dive into the detail of copywriting the body of your marketing emails, I want to remind you to think carefully about your subject lines. If you can’t get your subscribers to open your emails, the content doesn’t matter as they won’t see it! Make sure you download my FREE guide: 10 subject line tactics to get your emails opened.

Subject lines are super important for growing engagement with your email list. In the beginning, subscribers don’t really know what to expect from your email content, so you need to give them great reasons to open up the email.

Next, you need to consistently entertain them with the content of your emails. That way they actively look forward to reading them and subject lines become less important. They see your email arrive in their inbox and they think “Oh goody, it’s [insert your name here] again - I can’t wait to read this”.

Planning your marketing email content

Don’t get too hung up on the description “marketing email” - I’m partly calling it that here for SEO purposes but what I mean by marketing email is your email newsletter or regular communication that goes out to your subscriber list. I’m not talking about promotional emails pushing a product or service, I’m talking about relationship-building emails to nurture your list over time. The best kind of emails. 💌 Marketing doesn’t mean selling in this instance, but of course that will be the long-term goal.

When you sit down to write an email and you aren’t faced with selling something, it can make it more fun to write but it can also make it more difficult to think of what to say. I’ll cover email content creation in more detail in another blog (subscribe to The Cheer List and you’ll get that sent over when it’s live).

Put simply, when you’re not overtly selling, your marketing email should focus on building the Know, Like and Trust factor with your readers.

To do this, your marketing email could be about the following:

• A funny/interesting anecdote from your week

• Your latest blog/podcast/video/guide

• A round-up of great content from sources other than yourself that your readers might like

• Industry news

• A round-up of your best content

• A throwback to an old but good piece of content

Sharing anecdotes is my favourite tactic for my emails and I always try to tie it back to my core expertise: email marketing. I also tend to throw in a PS after signing off with my name to direct the reader to my Facebook group or my Instagram.

What’s the ideal length for a marketing email?

Going down the route of not selling but instead striving to make a genuine connection means your email could go on and on and on. Try not to do that. Keep it under 1000 words. I advise 800 words maximum.

The longest email I’ve sent so far this year was 718 words and I edited that a lot to get it down to that. This particular email received a lot of positive replies (including a hand-draw picture of a unicorn by a subscriber’s 6 year old - how special!) but the click rate wasn’t the highest I’ve had.

It was a success because it created two-way email conversations with subscribers but if I want to drive clicks, I know I need to make it shorter.

I’ve found my own personal sweet spot to be around the 400-500 word mark. Which is pretty concise!

You’ll need to experiment with your emails, record the results and find out what works for you and your audience.

Conclusion

When writing marketing emails to build a connection with your subscribers, you don’t focus on selling immediately. You’ll need to use the art of storytelling to help your readers to know, like and trust you. This will build up over time, so you need to be consistent in sending out your emails to keep the momentum going.

The temptation can be to write a really long email of over 1000 words, but in my experience, this isn’t needed. Don’t waste your time and energy in writing very long emails. You run the risk of turning off your subscribers with too much waffle.

The ideal length of a marketing email aimed at building engagement with your audience is 400-500 words.

You should experiment with longer emails, but stick to a maximum of 800 words.