What Is The Perfect Length for Your Sales & Marketing Emails
The attention span of the general public decreases year by year. Researchers claim we are in the tight grips of an “attention war” with the blame being placed on technology slowly creeping into every aspect of modern life. Every new phone, app or device is now designed to be as addictive as possible, filled with features that constantly ping people’s dopamine receptors and keep them coming back for more.
With that being said it is now harder than ever to get people to read and engage with your emails and sales messages as they are so overstimulated with everything else on their phone, laptop or other device. So if you want to make an impression you have to be quick and clever.
In this blog we discuss the ideal email type and length for sales and marketing emails, as well as some other key strategies you can use to stand out in the inbox and optimise conversions:
Why Is Email Length So Important?
Before we delve into the strategies and data we need to understand why the length and structure of your emails are so important.
- There are more factors than ever before all competing for your readers attention. On average people receive 126 business emails a day so its unlikely that they have the time to fully read every one.
- Readers will often scan emails rather than reading them fully as they now receive so many. In fact, readers often skip the introduction and only fully read about 19% of newsletter content.
- Email clients often “clip” and shorten email previews and copy as to fit on the screen so readers can often miss valuable information or have to click through to a web browser
So What is The Ideal Email Length?
So we have discussed why the email length is important, now let’s cover some best practices. There are 4 different areas of the email that need to be focused on regarding length and they are:
- Subject Line
- Preheader Text
- Email Copy
- Call To Action (CTA)
Subject Line
As previously mentioned the Inbox is a crowded place so nailing your subject line is crucial if you want to stand out from the crowd. Inboxx recommends analysing your email data to see how many of your email subscribers are using mobile.
Be sure to incorporate some personalisation into your subject lines in order to engage them and establish the point of your email, factors such as name, age, gender, location etc can all be used to effectively personalise email subject lines. Always test out your subject lines on different devices to see how they will appear to different users. For our full guide on how to write the perfect subject line click here:
Subject Line Ideal Length: Between 30-50 characters with 40 being the sweet spot
Preheader Text
The preheader text is the bit of copy that appears next to the subject line, giving a preview of what the email is going to be about. Think of the pre header as a kind of “second chance” to grab your reader’s attention if the subject line fails.
Again always remember that over half of your email list will be using a mobile device to check their emails, so to increase your open rates ensure that the preheader text is optimised for mobile devices.
Preheader Text Ideal Length: 40-100 Characters
Email Copy
Email copywriting is an entire skill in itself. Remember when crafting your email copy, keep in mind people’s attention spans, people tend to skip long introductions and scan the main parts of the text. Keep your copy clean and well laid out so that even when scanned through quickly people can still get all the information they need. Good email copy emphasises and reiterates the important points to really hammer home the message. Click here for our full guide on how to provide value with your email copy:
Be sure to avoid basic grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in your copy as this will come across as hugely unprofessional and illegitimate potentially ruining your conversion rate and click through rate.
Email Copy Ideal Length: 50-125 words
Call To Action Ideal Length
An email without a CTA serves no purpose. Once your readers have opened your email, scanned most of the copy, the end of the email needs to contain an engaging call to action (CTA). A well written call to action drives clicks through to your website increasing your conversion rate drastically.
You want your CTA to be specific and action oriented, making use of appropriate action words and enticing the reader to click through and find out more. Click here to read our full guide on how to write the perfect call to action:
Call To Action Ideal Length: 2-4 words
Wrap up
Double and triple check your emails before you send them to your subscribers. Be sure to take time and try to provide value with your emails. Think about content, layout, design and of course the length.
If you’d rather leave your email marketing to the professionals then feel free to get in touch.
Inbox offers bespoke email marketing services for B2B businesses. Our email campaigns are designed to get you noticed by the people that matter.
