Email is the reigning champion for B2B. I cannot imagine this ever changing. It’s not that social is NOT a tried and true communications channel, however… sitting in an office (desk) environment is where business enterprise happens. (I received a fair amount of heat for not jumping on the “IR and social media” bandwagon – but I was right)
That all said, social HAS impacted email in a profound sense. Our attention spans. The unavoidable truth is that our text-length-mentality combined with shear message volume has reduce our attention span.
Here are eight tips to communicate quickly WHILE encouraging deeper reading of your emails:
- Adjust your subject line and preview text so they line up with your email’s content. If you bait and switch the content, “recipients” will not become “readers.”
- Be mobile-friendly. Recipients often delete or unsubscribe from emails that aren’t mobile-friendly.
- Use headlines and bullets. Having heavy full sentences and paragraphs can stop the flow of an email.
- Be concise with “above the fold” space. No body scrolls unless your content flow nicely.
- Use images. A compelling image is worth 1,000 words and will really pull recipients into the text content.
- Keep it technically light. Too many big images will create slow load times, annoying subscribers. Use ample HTML text to lighten the load.
- Long emails will work. Recipients will scroll down if your email narrative is relevant.
- Check that the links work. A broken link will end an email interaction. Period.
I have sent MANY MANY MAAAAAANNNNNNY emails. Besides the points above, I always keep one other point in mind: I act as if I am sending spam. This keeps me respectful to the audience. As you’ll read HERE, this was an essential manta for me.
