Editing & Tightening Your Emails

When you first get into email marketing, the temptation is big to write these long, elaborate emails. And while there is certainly a time and place for these type of emails, for the most part, you’re better off keeping it short and sweet. Think back to your own experience as a subscriber. With dozens of emails coming in each day (or more), you don’t have the time to read lengthy emails most of the time. Instead, you skip over them or skim through them, thinking you’ll come back and read the whole thing later … which of course never happens.

You own subscribers are no different. Be respectful of their time by crafting emails that are short and concise. When it comes to email marketing less is often more. Let the sales page do the majority of the “talking”. If you’re sharing free content, send them to a blog post or video instead. Or create a downloadable pdf document for your readers when you have a lot of content to share.

Getting in the habit of keeping emails short and sweet with just the right amount of words is something that takes time. In the meantime, editing is your friend. Editing your emails before you hit send is of course always a good idea. It allows you to find mistakes, correct errors, and realize that what you’ve written doesn’t quite make as much sense as it did in your head. This is particularly important if you get interrupted and then get back to writing your email. This can result in an email that doesn’t flow well and you may even be missing important information that helps your readers follow along.

For now, write your initial draft for your email. Give it your best shot, save your work and walk away. Then come back once you’ve cleared your head and read through the email. Correct any mistakes and make sure it flows well. Then go back over it one more time and see if there’s anything you can cut from it. Are you getting too wordy in parts? Can you take a few paragraphs out and repurpose them into a blog post? Sometimes this will make sense, but sometimes you need a lengthier email and that’s ok.

Take your time and edit your email so it conveys exactly what your readers need to know. Once you have it tightened up, give it one more read to make sure it still flows and there are no grammatical or spelling errors, double check that the links you’re using work and hit send.