Mailing Your List: How Important is Length?

Hi Andy, I think I do ... the length of messages, it seems to me, ought to depend on the demographics of the subscribers and their expectations (however those have been formed).

These are bound to vary from marketer to marketer, according to "who the people are, where they came from, what they opted in for and what you told them they'll get".

The people on my lists, for example, have mostly been attracted by long articles to a content-rich site (which they've seen before/while opting in, not after ... i.e. I make a point of not using pure squeeze pages to build my lists), and they've been told (and typically in these words) that by opting in, they'll receive "more of the same", so it makes sense for me to send out long emails. (I send them less frequently than some marketers, I know).

If I were building my lists from PPC ads with a squeeze-page, I'd be treating them very differently indeed and perhaps sending more frequent, shorter emails. But in spite of some potential overlap, perhaps, those are, broadly speaking, "different people".

It may depend a little on the niche itself, too, though my guess is that overall, that's actually a less significant consideration than the "demographics".

This may sound strange, but ... though I sell slowly and surely as I go along, I don't focus on it ... in my mind, the primary purpose of an email is to make sure they open and read the next email. It's a trust-building process. Experience in 8 niches has taught me that if you keep your open rates as high as possible, and send promotions in about one email in three, you will make plenty of money.

I tend to keep mine somewhat short and sweet. People are bombarded with e-mails these days and I just never think they want to be bothered with long, drawn out rants. That said, I agree with Alexa and some others that it depends on the desire or expectations of your subscribers.

Short is always better. I've managed/owned several lists with over 10,000 members and a sure formula for losing subscribers is to send them REALLY LONG emails - people burn out of those quickly.

Instead of burning out my members, I'd send small, useful tidbits making them crave more.. making them want to visit my website and get more content. Sometimes I'd attach a PDF filled with affiliate links for those who wanted a bunch of reading material...

keep it short and sweet! And useful. #1 thing to keep in mind is "If I got this in my own inbox, why would I want to open it"

I've sent emails that had 7 words. (2 of them were "Buy NOW!" )

And I've sent emails that had 2,000+ words.

Both worked - or didn't work - in similar proportions.

The key, with YOUR list, is to test and see.

The biggest issues with longer emails are:

* chances of getting filtered out because of trigger words
* some subscribers balk at reading long messages

The biggest problems with short emails are:

* you need to grab attention and provoke curiosity, OR
* you need to deliver value in short, punchy snippets

Hope this helps.

All success
Dr.Mani

I believe it all has to do with conditioning like @AlexaSmith was saying.

However you subscribers come in contact with you, is how they will be expecting to receive new content. But that doesn't mean you should always and only do it one way.

I personally like to change things up ALL THE TIME. This way people do not get bored with my emails. I also like to say strange and outrageous things to my list that sometimes will shock and awe people...

But thats just the name of the game man. You gotta sell with personality.

Hope that helps boss!

This really depends on your own list...

My testing has shown that my promo's do better when I keep the email body short and sweet...

Also, when giving out free content, I have noticed links at the end of longer emails get less clicks...

In fact, I recently tried something and sent a bonus with a promo and got 3 times as many clicks to the sales page as I did to download the really awesome bonus and got the lowest number of unsubs I"ve had in awhile... (I put the link to the promo first in the beginning, then the bonus at the bottom)

So, for me, shorter emails work better, but it depends on what you train your list to do...

Find your style then test and tweak to get the most profits...

Good Luck

If your intention is to provide good value to your subscribers and not to drive clicks, then you could do with longer emails. However, if you are promoting an offer, i've found that shorter emails drive higher ctrs

It depends on your goals with your email.

Regardless, you need to educate your list to...

#1 open our emails
#2 read your emails because it provides them with a benefit to do so
#3 feel they want to open your next email.

As long as you provide value and interest, length isn't an issue in my experience.

I think short is good...

Here's what I've found out after having been doing email marketing for years:

The point of an email is NOT to pre-sell or to warm up your prospects. That's what the landing page is for. The sole point of an email is to get the click.

It took me a long time to realize that pre-selling my subscribers through beefy emails is counter productive. Again, I repeat: that's the landing page's job, not the email's job. The email's job is just to get the reader to click on the link, that's all.

That means that, in my experience, shorter, punchy and curiosity-tickling emails outperform lengthy emails. I've split-tested this extensively, and whenever I write more than a fistful of lines my click-through ratios drop. It seems like people simply do NOT read lengthy emails unless they come from friends or relatives.