There’s been a lot of debate recently on what is the best type of email to send to your email list.
With both Google and Yahoo really clamping down on ‘spammy’ emails, some marketers think that ‘text’ only emails with one link is best for deliverability.
It helps to get the emails through Google and Yahoo’s system.
Others say that images and multiple links are fine. I guess the success of people’s email marketing is dependent on the relationship they have with the people on their lists.
The legendary online marketer, Neil Patel, sends ‘text-only’ emails to his email list of 1,588,639 people (not a bad sized email list!) because he says it works best for him.
Neil recently ran multiple AB split tests to determine what the best word count was for an email.
He sent a series of emails that were:
- 99 words or less.
- 100 to 249 words.
- 250 to 459 words.
- 500 to 999 words.
- 1,000 or more words.
Neil ran the test 6 times to ensure that he got accurate data.
The results were:
- 99 words or less – 2nd best 2.72%
- 100 to 249 words – best open rate at 3.84%
- 250 to 459 words – 3rd best 2.53%
- 500 to 999 words – 4th best 0.92%
- 1,000 or more words – 5th best 0.69%
He ran the test again using the email lists of 26 different companies in various industries – Neil runs an agency that manages emails and marketing for companies.
The email lists were of at least 100,000 people and had an active open rate of 20% or higher.
The results were:
- 99 words or less – 3rd best 1.98%
- 100 to 249 words – best open rate at 3.57%
- 250 to 459 words – 2nd best 2.01%
- 500 to 999 words – 5th best 0.59%
- 1,000 or more words – 4th best 0.86%
As you can see, the results are close to the findings from the tests he ran with his own list.
It appears that the emails that are 100 to 249 words long are the clear winner here.
2nd and 3rd place go to those emails also with a low word count.
Now, I don’t know why longer emails are not being opened because people cannot see how long an email is until they open them.
Perhaps shorter emails are getting through the filtration systems at Google, Yahoo, and other mail services.
Maybe people opened up 2 or 3 of the longer emails and then stopped opening any following emails as they expected them to be longer, whereas the shorter emails were quick to read and so people were happy to open any following emails.
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One of the aims with email marketing is that you train and condition people to do something specific and so if you send out a lot of long emails, subscribers will get used to them and expect them.
That means that if they don’t want to read long emails and they know that is what you send… they won’t open your emails.
The results from Neil’s experiment are interesting. His findings show that a lot of people do not want to read a lot in an email.
That doesn’t necessarily match my experiences.
Depending on what list I send emails to, some of my longer emails (some include images) have an open rate of over 30% which is very good for the industry.
However, that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have better results if I started to send out emails with 259 words or less.
After seeing Neil’s research, it makes me realise how wonderful people like you are because you are willing to read my long emails.
Another finding which is interesting is how many marketers only include one link in an email. They may repeat it a few times, but they only link out to one destination.
This I found interesting because I recently wrote about how Atomic Newsletters were becoming popular with marketers.
These newsletters are usually less than 250 words meaning that they are fast to read, and they are fast to create.
These styles of newsletters include several different links as they are designed to share great information with the people on their email lists without taking up a lot of their time.
Personally, it doesn’t make much sense to me because if people do click through the links to the recommended article, video, or podcast, those people will spend their time consuming that information.
If that’s the case, they may as well read a long email.
Worst thing about Atomic Newsletters is that those who use them share a lot of ‘other people’s content which means that their subscribers are being sent to ‘other people’s’ content meaning that they are not consuming their own content.
Why send your subscribers to spend their time consuming other people’s content as a way to respect their time?
It makes no sense to me.
I am not sure whether I agree that multiple links are a problem due to retail giants such as Amazon that use email to promote products generally link out to more than one destination. I don’t think they suffer because of it.
Still, putting that aside for one minute, the idea of only using one link in emails that have fewer than 250 words had me thinking… what if you were to actually host your Atomic Newsletter on your website and simple send an email that sends people to it.
I see many reasons as to why this could be beneficial to you.
- Your email has a greater chance of getting through the filters email services use to remove spam and dodgy emails.
- You are sending people to your website where they can access more of your content… if you make it easier for them, that is.
- You can include as many images, links, and product adverts on your page as you want.
- You can use as many words as you wish.
I am going to use today’s email as an example.
This part is going to go on to the website and a shorter email is going to be sent out directing people to it.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens. This is my little experiment.
I have been thinking of trying out a new Atomic Newsletter of our own called…
…but for now, I think that I shall test this little idea first.
Let me know what you think…
Do you prefer to read long emails or short emails?
Would you rather read emails as articles via the website like this one?
Send your answers and feedback to Andi, our email chap, at admin@streetwisepublicationsltd.com
Kind regards.
John Harrison.
P.S… As a side note, it’s easy for people to say that you don’t need a website these days and that you can run a complete online business via email or social media… and yes, it’s true, you don’t necessarily NEED one, but it’s like trying to run a restaurant without a kitchen or dining area.
It is much easier when you have your own piece of online property.
