On average, our emails are opened by about 22% of people that we send them to (that being relatively normal for a large mailing list). Thank you for being one of them! Just to be clear, we don’t have anything against the other 78% we’ve emailed, they might be busy, on holiday, or just don’t want to hear from us today (and that’s completely ok!). However, we want as many people to read and interact with our emails, so how do we do better?
What actually makes a good email in the first place? Is it actually the content contained within it, or is it something else? A magic ingredient perhaps. The briefness of an email? More text? Less text? Humour? Images?
Well, to be honest, there probably isn’t a perfect answer because we all walk, talk and write differently than each other. One thing is a constant however, your business spends an inordinate amount time within e-mail, whether that’s reading, writing, editing, replying or forwarding.
There is a ‘measuring stick’ of sorts that you may find surprising. Check out this infographic assembled by Mashable:
What we want to focus your attention on today, is the amount of time spent reading or answering emails. 28% of a work week!?
Ok, so we’ve obviously just helped add to that statistic, and because email is still so prevalent in our lives, we’re unlikely to be reducing that amount any time soon. However, rather than wax lyrical about the ‘perfect email’ (which we’re still working on by the way, let’s face it there’s no such thing!), we pulled a video from our ‘value vault’ that will hopefully help with anyone who wants to evaluate the kinds of emails you write, and how to make sure you write the most effective email you can. Enjoy!