Why People Read (Or Don't Read) Your Email - Part 2

October 6, 2009

Interview with Ron Cates Spokesperson for Constant Contact

www.roncates.com

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Mike Carruthers:
People don’t read email the same way they read a letter on a piece of paper. When you send someone an email…

Ron Cates:
They spend two to two and a half minutes and they scan it. They look at the upper left of the screen the most, that gets the most view "heat." Then they look at headlines and a couple of sentences below.

Ron Cates

Ron Cates Spokesperson for Constant Contact says 30% of the decision to open your email is based on the subject line. Your subject line should be compelling but concise.

Ideally it’s going to be 40 characters or less and that includes spaces but I’m going to recommend it never ever go more than 49. At more than 49 characters two bad things happen. Open rates drop by about 13 or 14%, but the click-through rate (click to my link to buy my stuff, or visit my website, or find out more information) those drop 75%. And I just got the very best bad example of commercial email. It’s from Neman Marcus; it says “Fall fashions you cannot afford to miss”. And I looked at in my inbox and it said, “Fall fashions you cannot afford”.

We all know email spam when we see it, but technically the recipient decides if what you send is spam.

People are very protective of their email inbox. When I go out to my post office box and it’s filled with junk mail, I really don’t get angry I just throw it away. But if you invade my email inbox with a lot of promotional content that I didn’t ask for or if you send it to me too often, well then to me you’re a “spamer”.

To hear the complete unedited interview click here.