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The weekend cometh like a thief in the night. A 3-dayer at that.

We’ll wave bye-bye to the work week and summer with ways to keep email summaries from sideswiping your email marketing efforts. That’s today’s Main Thing. 

Then, I’ve got a nice stack of short videos inside This Week’s Marketing Wrap-Up.

Appetizer: Jenny Hoyos reveals her 60-second storytelling secret.

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The Main Thing

Email Summaries Are Threatening Your Email Marketing Success

One of the best uses of precious little robots (AKA AI) is the summaries.

Makes reading quick. Though, you never know what details the bot leaves out if you trust the summaries 100% of the time.

Well, these summaries are getting more popular in the inbox. Google has automated the process in some cases. 

Meaning some of your readers don’t even have to click on the Gemini button to get the summary!

Best not to bury your head in the sand on this. See how to defend your email marketing efforts against AI bots that can decide what your subscribers get to see inside your email campaigns.

3 Things to Avoid in Emails if You’re Worried About Summaries

#1 Don’t bury key details.

#2 Heavy use of banners and logos that confuse the AI summarizer.

#3 Avoid vague subject lines.

Content above the fold is naturally seen as important by the AI summarizer. Consider shrinking your email header. With subject lines, they shouldn’t be vague - even without the worry of email summaries.

To be clear, you want your emails to be easy to skim. But…

Are Skimmable Emails Different From Skimmable Articles?

You can take your cue from Axios’ Smart Brevity if you want. Use bolding, bullet points, lots of headers and white space. I question Axios’ bolding technique though.

If you already write articles like that, email is similar. But with the following differences.

• Tone must be direct and results-oriented.

• Storytelling will risk being ignored by AI summaries AND humans.

• Use even shorter paragraphs.

Most people read emails on smartphones. This makes it more vital to write for skimmers. They’re using tiny screens. 

The following character count suggestions will help you adjust for small screens:

Can You Win the War with AI Email Summaries? 

The tactics above improve your odds. However, there is one way to not worry about the summaries at all. But it’s the most vague advice ever…

Figure out one thing your readers will love about your emails that a summary can never give them. 

Similar to one thing that would make an email subscriber dig through their junk or promotions folder to find your email.

Told ya. Vague. You’ll have to figure out what YOUR thing is. I can give you an example, but it might not work for your audience. 

Games

For the history newsletter we started a couple months ago, I include a couple of games each week. Exclusive games you can’t find just anywhere. I make them with Claude since I’m not a coder.

Am I a big fan of word games or trivia online? Nope. I’ve got enough sense to notice a go-zillion people are fans, though. 

Fanatics, to be exact. Noticed it on a beach trip with the GF’s family. Her dad and his partner love games. The first thing they did each morning was play simple games on their iPads. The GF too. 

They all have their favorite games. They hunt them down every morning. 

Maybe games would work for your ONE BIG THING. Games can be made to relate to most any topic.

Most likely, though, you’ll have to get creative. Test a few things to see what gets the most clicks in your emails despite AI summaries.

Onward to the Wrap-Up, including how to pitch anything…

Please share Inbox Hacking with a fellow marketing genius or business owner. I appreciate you reading.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin.

“This kind of automation risks giving people a false sense of understanding. Summaries might look slick, but in business or legal emails, the devil is often in the detail.” ~Dr Jenna McCarthy (digital communications researcher at the University of Manchester)

Looking for sales-specific tips? I like the newsletter below…