Before you mentally check out thinking “I'm not a writer, this doesn't apply to me” – I'm really talking about creating marketing of any type here.

Could be written content like emails, blog posts or social media posts. But it could be video, audio, anything really.

Anyway, I have a particular “style” of writing emails.

I don't mean a style like a fiction writer would have. Nothing as fancy as that.

But I write emails with a certain frequency and a certain length. They're quite chatty.

And formatted a certain way.

But more importantly, they say something.

My goal in every email is to try to give you a new idea (or at the least, to remind you of an old idea you may have forgotten) that will help move you forward in your business.

It's to build credibility and trust too. So that at some point you might buy one of my products. But I only get to do that if I succeed in giving you something useful to move your business forward.

In my time I've tried lots of different styles of email. I'm sure you've seen them from other people who you've subscribed to too.

Some people email daily. Some do short emails. Others do long ones. Some tell stories. Some are funny. Some talk about themselves and their journey. Some talk about their clients and how well they're doing. Some people rant. Other people try to be nice to everyone.

I chose (actually, it's probably truer to say I evolved) my style of email simply because it was the style I preferred as a consumer.

I like to read emails that give me new ideas and make me think.

So over time, I came to write more and more emails aimed at giving you new ideas and making you think.

All the other stuff about frequency, length, stories or facts. They all became less important than my main goal.

So sometimes I'll do long emails, sometimes short. Sometimes I'll tell a story, often I won't. I'll go through periods of emailing frequently followed by periods of reverting to once a week.

All of those factors can have an impact on how often your emails are opened and read. But none of them are as important as having a clear goal for your emails.

What's your goal?

It's probably different to my goal.

A great start is to think about the emails (or blog posts or videos or whatever format you're thinking about) that you consume and why you value them.

Can you emulate that value in your own content?

You don't have to. But it's a lot easier to do something consistently if you enjoy it yourself and you believe in it.