Wesley Wise politely challenged me in his comment: if people are blazing through their e-mails deleting large amounts of it, how does one achieve that worthy goal of "be interesting".
I've been pondering that for a while, looking back over what I've heard in interviews, focus group discussions and customer co-creation labs. Because it isn't just me that has a problem with e-mail, it's pretty-much everyone with an e-mail account.
Here's what people have told me is important to them:
• I get a lot of stuff to read, make it easy to scan for what's important to me
One fellow I spoke to, in his office, pulled out a stack of newsletters from various big companies that he had printed off and put into a "priority reading" pile. Then he showed me his e-mail folders with more items filed there -- dozens if not hundreds of items kept for possible reference. (It made my own e-mail challenges pale in comparison.
How to make something scannable -- well, make it easy to see what topics are in your e-mail.
• Give me information I can use. In language I can understand.
Customer-centric language and topics are just going to be more interesting, aren't they? Even if what you are announcing is your new research facility in Boston make it about the customer.
Avoid those puffed-up, bloated sentences filled with low-value gibberish. You've seen them, they often sound something like this:
As the leading provider of blah-blah in the blah-blah metropolitan area for xx years, we are always striving to provide our most valued clients on the east coast (and around the world!) with the highest possible standards of blah-blah. We are therefore pleased to announce a new addition to our family of high-quality blah-blah.
E-mail announcements from technology-oriented companies can often be impenetrable to others. Try this test: could my Mother/Father/Aunt Fannie understand this?
• How about a little color?
Admittedly, this is not an issue with consumer-focused e-mails, which are often filled with color. But I talk to a lot of people who read technical things in e-mails, and e-mailed newsletters, and they would like design features used to help them a) scan and navigate b) relieve the landscape of raw text.
Recipe for success
[1] Use a good e-mail platform
If you aren't using a major e-mail engine, it is probably time to start. They will give you good templates to use that look nice and work well in most e-mail readers. These companies are low cost for the value provided, and can make a small business look as good as a big one.
[2] Now that you've converted to a professional platform, read their best-practices content.
There's a lot of good information available from these folks, who know much more about the topic than I do. There's a great list from AWeber here.
[3] Hire a writer
When you see bloated gibberish like the paragraph I produced above, it's a sure bet that it wasn't written by either a marketing professional or a writing professional.
Take a look at a good daily newspaper, either online or in print. Notice how the headline tells half the story. And the first couple of paragraphs tell you what you need to know to decide if you want to keep reading. If you are writing your own copy, pretend you just started working at the NY Times and need to keep the job.
[4] If you had to say this to someone in an elevator, could you do it?
Reading your copy out loud is a good cure for bloat. Just figure out what you want to say, then say it. And say why it's important to the reader.
Okay, that's my list. What's yours? What's missing here that would help save us all from unintentionally terrible e-mail?
