too much cream in my coffee

Published 6 days ago • 1 min read

Popping into your inbox a day late, Reader,

I've been out of whack since coming back from BETT (seriously, I thought yesterday was Tuesday until 3:30).

Speaking of realizations... I had one recently about my coffee habits.

My longtime friend raved about intermittent fasting, and since she knew I was a diehard cream in coffee kind of gal, she suggested I do something called ‘dirty fasting’ where you put a splash of heavy cream in your coffee.

Welp, that 'splash' turned into a log flume and became an invisible calorie loophole, if you will.

This is exactly what happens in marketing.

We all have our version of this with things we swear “don’t count”:

“It’s just a quick email.”
“It’s just one more link.”
“It’s just one more feature to mention.”

Individually, they seem harmless.

But it's the inbox equivalent of:

How did this get so heavy when I thought I was being intentional?

Most messy marketing includes tiny, invisible decisions we never thought to question.

So here's a 7-minute challenge for your next email:

Pull up the last email you sent (or the one you’re about to send).

Then ask yourself three questions:

What's the one action I want my target audience to take here?
What sentence, CTA, or feature mention doesn’t directly support that action?
If I had to cut 20% of this email, what would go first?

Delete just one of those “it doesn’t really count” extras.

That's it for me. See you next week (on our usual Wednesday).

And as always, I'm rooting for you,

Kelly

PS. Pssssst. Can you tell me some of the podcasts you're listening to that are getting your creative marketing juices flowing?

Any EdTech-related ones that are your go-tos?

I need something to listen to on my walks. Reply to this email and let me know, please and tak (pronounced 'tack' & it's the Danish way of saying thanks).

Did a friend forward this email? Subscribe here.

191 Haines Avenue, PO Box 104, Barrington, NJ 08007
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Read more from EdTech Email Alchemy: Turn Your Emails Into District-Winning Deals

who's your villain?

Hey, hey Reader, Yesterday marked the first live call inside Emma Stratton’s Make It Punchy messaging course. I honestly didn’t realize how much my brain needed it. So much of messaging work (and freelancing in general) happens solo. You, your laptop, your thoughts, your Slack tabs. Being in a room, even a virtual one, with other smart marketers thinking deeply about messaging and story felt like the back-to-basics reset I needed. The hardest part was choosing which client’s messaging to work...

21 days ago • 3 min read

she melted down faster than the wicked witch

Hey, hey Reader, My mom has a long-standing family policy that can be summed up as: If you’re standing closest, you win. Need a lamp? A sweater? A sentimental family heirloom?Being physically present is the only qualification. Which brings me to this year’s Christmas drama... For years we thought these handmade Wizard of Oz ornaments, sewn by my mom when she was pregnant with my oldest sister, were lost forever. Then… they reappeared. And because my sister Megan happened to be there when they...

27 days ago • 1 min read

a push forward as i look back

Hey, hey Reader, Phew. As 2025 comes to a close, I want to pause and look back for a moment. Professionally, it was a year of intentional yeses. Personally, 2025 broke me, and I learned that growth and grief can exist at the same time. So let’s look back on those yeses, shall we? Highlights from 2025 🎟️Attended my third BETT conference and developed a partnership that’s still going strong today. (And speaking of BETT...will you be there? If so, reply to this email and let’s make time to...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read