When it comes to your email newsletter, deciding what and how much to write is one of the biggest email marketing challenges small businesses and nonprofits face.

It is not easy.

You want to give your readers as much information as possible about who you are and what you do, but you’re fighting the inbox. People receive an average of 147 emails per day and they don’t read them or act on all of them.

If you want your email to stand out from the crowd, keep it brief. This is especially important as more and more people are using smartphones to read their emails. In reality, 72% regularly access email with a mobile device and they don’t want to scroll through long messages.

But how do you balance your need to share information with your readers’ messaging habits? Here are 3 tips:

1. Share a little. Link to more.

If you want to promote an article on your blog, details of an event, or news about a product or service, write a few sentences about the topic and then link to the full information on your website. United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley gives readers a taste of their content along with a link to find out more. Linking to your website from your email is a great way to entice people to access a more solid supply of information without overwhelming them.

2. Make a list.

Jaye Myrick, co-owner of Take 5 massages, uses lists and templates before writing newsletters. This allows him to pare down the content and use only the important information that readers need to know.

3. Say it with multimedia.

Your email content doesn’t have to be all text. Use an image, graphic or video to tell a story. Tee Fury does so in their emails by featuring one shirt design a day. The image links to the page on their website where you can purchase the shirt.

Start experimenting with links, lists, and multimedia in your next newsletter and see what works. The most important thing is to keep it short and sweet!

Need more help with mobile-friendly email marketing? Sign up for our next “Mobile Advocacy» webinar of July 23, 2013.