I have previously estimated that when faced with a lot of emails to read, I would spend no more than ten seconds on each one. Making those 15 seconds count can be the difference between your business failing or succeeding.
It would seem that I am a little less patient than the average email reader as it would appear that around 15 seconds is the average time people will spend reading a marketing email.
Given that an average person will read at around 200 words per minute this means that you might have around 50 words to impress them.
From more than 30 years spent reading written letters, faxes and emails in busy newsrooms this really seems to ring true with me.
So the bottom line is this – each time you send out an email you have to impress your audience really early on.
Don’t spent five or six sentences building up to the main event or the reader will never even make it past all the fluff and filler you so needlessly added.
- Grab the reader’s attention with the headline
- Keep them captivated with the introduction
- Retain their attention with a well-written, clear and focused email which is targeted to their needs and
- tell them what action you expect them to take next.
Finally if you send out email newsletters you should fare a little better…it seems that people are generally prepared to spend an average of 51 seconds reading newsletters.
