What If Email Had the Same Rules
May 19 2009
Well maybe “rules” is a little confining word choice, but let me put this out there for you to think about.
What IF email stopped using images and copy formats that you use today and instead had a rule of 140 characters of less in the subject line, body and links? Are you following this? What I am trying to put out there is the idea of focusing on getting the point instead of selling the dream. We spend so much time on the crafting of the copy that so often gets in the way of the action we want a subscriber to take. Why 140 characters? Well that is the new “black” of web communications. The UPDATE is the new manner of personal communication and maybe our email campaigns need to test the new approach.
The idea is that all of the new social media platforms are forcing simplicity and frequency on the audience with “updates”. And people are becoming used to it. We might be driving the idea without realizing it that less is more. Now is important. And brevity rules.
Are we now living in a world with so many email marketers now Tweeting and blogging about social media and how you can use it in your email campaigns that investigating a test could be a good idea?
Whether you choose to believe it or not I think that we are driving the always on society we live in to not only accept less to take action, but expect in even inside of the inbox. But will it work? Would you or your subscribers respond to your own email communications if you simply moved to an information as needed basis? I cannot answer this yet.
What I do find interesting is how every ESP is rushing to install social media tools to share email or products with your network outside of the inbox. It is like the new brother or sister of Send to Friend. It is almost like a feature war that everyone thinks is the hottest thing on the planet while I have not seen any case studies or results that prove that it is wanted. I can see how when used well it can increase the reach of a campaign or how it can give you greater exposure to a marketing effort… but how can it be used right?
Are we forcing this simplifying of our messaging so much that it is taking out the value of the copy? Or is having a greater effect on marketers thinking better about making sure that they are writing what needs to be said in less?
Love to hear your ideas about this.
- Posted by Dylan Boyd
- @dtboyd
- at 8:35 AM
Published in Behavioral Marketing, E-Mail Marketing, Email News, New Marketing Ideas, eMail Marketing Optimization
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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May 19th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Really interesting point but I think e-mail is a totally different medium and can’t be viewed alongside a tweet. The thing with e-mail is it is a push channel so the marketer is the one pushing the information to the recipient. surely if the content was limited to a smaller update style and frequency increased we are getting into the realms of bombarding people. The thing about the social media sites like Twitter is the user is generally controlling when they log in to see tweets and what form they view them in.
In my opinion e-mail is a different form of communication and wouldn’t work in this type of format. Be interested on your thoughts
May 19th, 2009 at 10:58 am
If we take the trends at face value, then messaging eventually becomes entirely functional. You can just send one line of text: Get 20%-off coupon here.
I don’t know if that will work, but I do know people still yearn for inventiveness, humor, color, stories, emotional connections, personal warmth etc. And not just from their personal connections.
Apparently we all have such short attention spans these days. But people still buy and read books.
So brevity and functionality is good, but it needs character, too, to stand out from everyone else’s brief, functional messages.
Curious where this will all take us.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I agree with Dylan that brevity is the new black.
;)
May 28th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Down with the wordy wenches! I believe most people are so over subscribed that an e-mail needs to be a quick read. I know I look to delete the e-mails as quickly as they come in. The message needs to be engaging, interesting, and relevant all rolled into a small package. From there, offer more information through links to Web sites and blogs that give the reader the option to drill down and dig deep.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:18 am
I am actually not sure whether Twitter is the formula for emailmarketing.
In one point I’d agree that brevity as a general writing style is good for getting attention.
(When it comes to selling it is different.)
Twitter not only means brevity but at least high frequency. Now, if you look at a typical inbox of a Twitter user you will find that they follow hundreds, sometimes thousands people. I’d guess that the average number of messages received in a Twitter account is much higher than the number of subject lines one have to read in an email account. Once again filtering is asked.
So, is additional reach in a traditional sense really achievable with Twitter (and other social media)? At present I’d say: No.
But I guess that the users’ behaviour will change. Do you remember the discussions that legitimate emails are overlooked in the masses of spam? Obviously you and me easily learned how to filter the good from the ugly. And I suppose that will happen with Twitter as well.
And perhaps with Twitter (and other social media) we should focus on quality instead of additional reach. Just one scenario: A company uses their tweets for exclusive communication. You and me can only be followers if we do not have more than 50 followers. And on the other hand the company focuses on the most interesting 50 clients. – Wouldn’t that change our views on what social media can do for us?
* The good thing about it: the technique is already in place.