As you may have noticed, the answer to almost every “Which is better?” question is, “It depends.”
Especially in the realm of marketing (and writing).
Knowing that, I should have expected the answers to my question, “Is shorter better?” would be nuanced.
I thought they’d all be like this:
- “Shorter is awesome! Just short enough to get the super-useful point across.”
- “I’ve loved the shorter emails.”
- “I preferred the even shorter ones”
And hadn’t considered this point:
- “Anything up to 250 words is fab. Too short, and we may wonder why we opened it!”
Which led nicely to what will likely be the approach I adopt/continue (I just went over 100 words writing this sentence, lol).
From friend of the list and music producer extraordinaire Jamie Hill:
- “Sometimes I want a snack, and sometimes I want a meal. What I typically don’t want is the same thing constantly. So for me, switching it up feels good”
Keeping it fresh,
James
P.S. Here’s a related theoretical formula that really rings true for me. It’s proposed by friend of the list and fellow daily emailer Jonathan Alger:
“(Time Needed to Read x Value of Reader’s Time) < Value of Information Shared
The one thing you can definitely control of those three variables—because the value of the reader’s time and the value of the information are both subjective in the mind of the reader—is time.”
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