Patrizia told me yesterday:
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I think e-mails should be shorter.
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That’s my answer.
I have two children:
– Giorgio, who doesn’t eat and snubs any dish you put in front of him;
– and Serena, a gourmand, who eats with gusto everything (except when she self-inflicts temporary diets as a teenager, but that’s another story…)
With smaller portions, Giorgio would not be tempted to eat more: he would continue to eat listlessly.
On the other hand, we would make Serena upset.
Similarly, on the length of emails:
- if someone is NOT interested in a certain topic of an email, it’s not that if it’s 5 lines long s/he reads the same “because it’s short”: s/he snubs it anyway.
- Conversely, if someone IS interested, s/he will read even 50 lines (of course if they are quality content). S/he may jump from one line to the next, but she reads and takes cues here and there.
So, when I write an email, I don’t worry about the those who don’t eat.
I always write the content thinking of making portions for those who read, not for those who do not read.
The company’s content strategy is one of the key topics of TheSystem, the 5-step method to create an effective positioning and message for your business and your product and arrive systematically until the closing of the sale.
P.S.:
this article, greetings and P.S. included, would be 261 words if it were an email: long or short? It depends…
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