Long or short autoresponder emails?

Thanks, ELK, for your ideas. I think good content is a key to keeping people opening your emails.

I just posted an answer in another thread about emails along this line.

The subject lines that say I have made a sale and I haven't really irk me. Also the ones with outlandish amounts of money in the subject line eg. I made $355,467 last month... are so totally off the wall! I think these are part of the reason IM has a negative reputation in some quarters. It's baloney hype.

Anyway, back to my emails...I notice that Ewen Chia (whom I admire) is using more teaser types of emails these days and they are never long. I try to keep up with what he does as I think he studies trends and makes adjustments as necessary.

I am looking at some of the email series that the affiliate programs are using and they are WAY too long. I think I could probably break them up into several short emails.

Thanks again for your ideas!

Hello,

The reason you probably don't bother to read a majority of "long" e-mails, is because those who have written them...fail to give you a reason to do so.

While e-mail copy is certainly supposed to be shorter, you can still get away with 500-600 words in an e-mail. Anything longer and you may want to start "cutting the fat", but that's a good area to keep it in.

One thing you can do to make your e-mails read easier:

Make your reader work less by limiting how wide each line of text is. You'll see this a lot if you check out almost any e-mail you get from marketers.

Rather than having the text run along the
entire given space, things will be kept more concise
like this. Doing so is less work for your readers eye
and can often greatly increase your message's readability.

Have you ever received an e-mail that you had to scroll to read? There was one marketer whose messages ALWAYS did this in the e-mail account I used to read them.

Keeping your text in "blocks" like that will also prevent that from happening. Personally, it only took a few of those e-mails until I hit "unsubscribe".

As for getting your reader started?

Don't just passively write something as the start of your e-mail. Remind them of who you are if necessary and then end with something that makes them curious enough to keep reading.

Don't think of it as "Man, how am I going to get them to read 500 words?". Instead, ask yourself how you can make each line or block of text move fluidly to the next.

Try to wrap your message in a story or find an interesting angle to present the information. Stories work great when writing copy and e-mails are no different.

Although the product is targeted more toward copywriters, you may find some benefit from Jay White's product, "Autoresponder Apprentice". Here's a non-affiliate link to check it out:

Up to $1,000 Per Hour for Writing Copy

He hangs out here sometimes. Perhaps he will chime in with more for you.

Hope that helps!

-Mike

First of all, my solution is to search for a email list to join in your niche for example if you are promoting a health product, I bet you should know which health product is selling good in the market go find out who is the author of the product and join his list, if he uses long email, then you should know your audience for the niche likes to read long email and if it's short then most probably your audience like short email, but hear this: every market had different mindset in reading email...

You cannot just because the internet marketing world nowadays like to use short email then it should be short, you should always research your market you are selling to, and know what they like....

Just imagine you are selling to bookworms... do you think they like short email or long email... remember markets are all different you need to know what they really like before assuming about it... guess is a mass make sure you research your competitor before deciding about long or short...

This well give you first hand advantage over other competitor...

There are always going to be people who do long form emails and they may work better for some. I just think nowadays there are a lot more advantages of getting people out of their inbox and over to your website.

Just another thing that needs to be tested.

This is another one I read every word of, too.

There is a big difference between Paul's emails and Travis's emails. Paul's are dense with information, where Travis's are fun to read. Not saying Paul's are not enjoyable, because they are. Paul just uses a much different style.

The biggest difference I see between Paul and Travis is their market. Travis focuses on training new internet marketers. Paul focuses on improving internet marketers. Small difference, but major change in expectations.

The thing I'm very confident of is both of these men have tested their results. They both know what works best for their markets and audience.

The best way to learn what is likely working in your niche is to sign up for a few lists in your market from successful competitors. Watch what they are doing and use it as your starting point for testing. You can potentially eliminate numerous steps in your testing phases if you start off close to the target, instead of re-creating the entire cycle.

Just keep in mind, while you and your competitor may both be in the same market, your styles may resonate completely differently with the audience. Which takes us right back to the examples of Paul and Travis. Their styles match their personalities which is authentic and keeps me engaged.

Remember, testing is just playing for profits....