Welcome to the What Charlie WROTE blog series Don’t Make This Common Content Management Mistake, or as I like to affectionately call it DMTCCMM. 

Overloaded emails with too much information and too much copywriting that would take the recipient too much time to read or filter through is one of the most common content mistakes of our times. 

Try saying that after an all nighter meeting deadlines. 

Don’t Make This Common Content Management Mistake: Overloaded Emails 

As a business owner myself, I get where you’re coming from: you haven’t emailed in a while, you’ve got a lot to share, you’re investing time and energy and money into this piece of content, and an email JAM PACKED with goodness should be a good thing, right?

You’re not wrong. But you’re a little way off landing where you want to with this mindset. 

Based on your observations of the world and your experience of social media it will come as no surprise to you that attention spans are short - and they’re getting shorter. 

(Just last month Jameela Jamil went viral for discussing Netflix creating dumbed down ‘second screen’ content because we no longer put our phones down long enough to watch a movie or episode of tv.)

What this means for you and the shiny new email you’re so excited to finally get in front of them, is that from the moment they open that email you a brutally short window of time to hold their attention. 

And the part that gets missed is that it’s  cognitive load, not creativity, that determines how well your email performs, and whether the recipient ultimately clicks or bounces. 

The Science Behind Designing The Best EDM For Your Business

Email engagement data from Vision6 aggregated campaign data analyses millions of emails sent across thousands of campaigns from Australian businesses using their email and SMS marketing platform.

This data indicates that up to 70% of ‘first reads’ are in mobile devices, and mobile devices mean skim reading. 

And even after you’ve won the battle to get the email opened, 97% of those people don’t click within the email to go further. 

With margins this slim you need to get the design right, and the content itself is the heart of that design. 

Behavioural Science In Email Marketing

We don’t talk enough about the roles cognitive load theory and decision fatigue play in the success or failure of email marketing strategies. 

The figures abf findings above are a direct result of the more information and choices we present in an email the less likely the reader is to take any action. 

So you might be thinking now that they’ve opened an email it’s game on to show them everything you possibly can while you have their attention.

But the data says in that situation the brain defaults to skip mode and the opposite performs better and emails with one clear CTA can lift click-to-open rates by 10–25% vs multi-offer emails.

When attention is failing clarity wins.

This means following these evidence-backed principles:

1. One topic per email: Not five. Not three. One. To reduce cognitive load, eliminate decision paralysis, and create the clearest possible next step.

2. Less links = more clicks: Multiple CTAs split attention, a single CTA concentrates it.

3. Relevance beats volume: AKA quality not quantity.

4. Format for skim reading: Short paragraphs, visual hierarchy, immediate value above the fold.

How To Plan Your Next Email Campaign

The best-performing emails reduce effort by giving the brain an easy yes: one idea, one benefit, one action.

Your emails are not an extension of your website. They’re not a brochure. They’re not an entire campaign squeezed into 600px.

They’re one of a few key handy tools in your decision trigger kit and the science and the stats both point to the same truth:

The more you try to say, the less you’ll actually communicate.