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Is there an ideal length for emails? |
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The general wisdom about emails is that shorter is better. With in-boxes at their all-time high in terms of volume, people have taken to scanning email much like they scan websites, looking for keywords or recognizable items, and often filing things away for later reading or printing.
With this “scanning” habit in mind, email authors should consider how to create email newsletters and email alerts that allow recipients to quickly absorb information and to understand what action they’re asked to take. The classic action is to click a link to learn more, which then leads the recipient to a website, or to click a link to take action on a petition or donation site.
Organizations should survey their email subscribers annually to assess whether the content they are emailing is being well presented, formatted, and organized. Open and click-through rates can offer clues to how email content is being viewed. Organizations should be open to alternate means to deliver email content, such as via RSS feeds, Facebook, or Twitter. Organizations should also consider ways to break up email content into smaller information chunks, and allow subscribers to customize the content they will receive by criteria such as geography or issue.
-Michael Stein, Internet Strategist www.michaelstein.net
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Tuesday, 04 August 2009
While there is some debate about the best length for email messages to your constituents, there are some pieces of common sense when it comes to crafting the size of your message. The fact remains that because people are receiving an ever-increasing amount of email from friends, family, brands and organizations, the time that they can spend on each message is low. Very low. Email Labs pegged it down to an average of 15-20 seconds per email (which of course is factoring in the -3 seconds you spend poring over the new Viagra ads). From this sad, but probably more truthful than dubious piece of web trivia, we can safely assume that, in general, a shorter email has a better chance of getting its message across to the recipients. However, as always, considerations for your audience need to be taken into account. A personally requested email shouldn’t have the same length constraints because the recipient specifically requested the information. Other unprompted messages, on the other hand, your recipients won’t be expecting and any unexpected mail that is not from a personal contact gets put on the bottom of the priority totem pole. For these reasons, any email that your organization sends out should generally be kept short, simple, easy to understand and easy to read.
General formatting best practices recommend a message that can easily be understood through skimming. There are a few general best practices to streamline your email message. First, your organization can provide absolutely essential information in the email and redirect to your website for a more fleshed out and detailed summary. Another way to cut the fluff is to boil your message down into bullet point lists. They’re easy to read, short, to the point and exactly what your eyes pick up on when skimming. When crafting an email that is guaranteed to be on the longer side, for example, an email newsletter, consider adding a table of contents with key points near the top of the page. This allows readers to see what your email is about even if they can’t dedicate the time to read the entire message.
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