In E-Mail Copy, Length Matters

An age old direct marketing debate is getting new attention in e-communication circles: copy length.

The number one concern on the minds of e-marketers, dwarfing factors like e-mail delivery and tracking, is inbox overload. What's keeping us up at night are the issues of too-full e-mail inboxes and a lack of trust among recipients due to spam.

The obvious take-away is that the subject line is probably the most important part of your e-mail and deserves quite a bit of attention.

The not so obvious take-away is that increasing trust is central to increasing open and conversion rates. That means your copy is the key to gaining and keeping a high level of confidence from your recipients. What length works best?

Just Get to the Point

The majority of arguments typically revolve around the copy being too long.

"People will never read that, it's way too long."

Or,

"With e-mail, people's attention spans are shorter, thus you need to keep copy succinct and to the point."

The same is often said for Web copy, microsites, blogs and even good old fashioned direct mail pieces.

While these statements may very well be true, we recommend you test and prove them based on your target audiences with your product/service.

Just as the sales process is different from business to business, so is the way various companies promote their product or service.

So, will shorter or longer copy work better for you? Testing is the only way to uncover the true revenue potential of your e-mail campaigns. Since there is no universal rule for copy length, you must take a proactive approach and test, test, test.

Continue Reading on Next page: Three steps to help determine what copy length to test first