“If my email is too short, I am not getting my message across”

“It makes me look lazy. Like I’m halfheartedly slapping a few words together and putting minimal effort into it.”
In our industry, introductory emails that are too short are hardly the problem. Allocators have gotten used to seeing long emails with walls of text and a scroll that goes on for 30 ft.

Why the case for shorter emails?

More people are opening emails on a mobile device than before. Yes, people have been saying this for years, but our own data shows that in the past 12 months alone, there has been an approximate +15.6% in email opens via a mobile device in our monthly newsletter. (Up 37% total from 32%).

Same database, same day of the week, same time of day, and similar subject lines. Yet, an increase of 15.6% more opens via a mobile device (with declining CPU open rates making up for that change).

On a mobile device, the average person finds it hard to read an email for more than 15 seconds. Hit them with something too long and it’s likely that they’ll spend even less than the ~15 seconds on it. Allocators are no different.

The “Perfect” Marketing Email?

There are lots of articles that will offer tips on how to design the “perfect” marketing email, but it all comes down to two things:

(1) What do you want your readers to know?

(2) What do you want from them?

For (1), start off by ditching greetings and pleasantries. We’re not suggesting you be callous and cold, but it’s too easy for emails to grow in length with all this extra text. Then, decide what information truly is key for an allocator to absorb within 15 seconds.

(2) is where you want to focus your efforts on. Some examples of what you might want from them:

– To open your pitchbook. Do it right and your analytics will tell you how much time they’ve spent on each page.

– For them to watch your video. APIs will inform you how engaged a viewer was.

– To visit your website, and click around to learn more about you. Again, do it right, and LPs will present themselves to you in the form of a lead score based on their level of engagement.

– A call set-up without back-and-forth emails. A good landing page helps.

Add multiple call-to-actions (clickthrough links) in your email. This gives your recipient multiple opportunities to click. And all of this, for you to filter through a large audience of individuals to reach out to those who matter.

Do you know how long Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address was?

271 words. That’s it. Proof that it’s possible to get across an incredibly profound message that will last the times, without using a lot of words. It’s about how you condense information in a way that you discuss only the essentials, and then “take back” what you want in return.

By Alan Chu