First: What qualifies me to talk about this?

I ran the biggest and one of the most popular email traffic directories in the world for over 11 years. This is how it looked in it’s infancy:

And this is how it looked when I sold it for a handsome exit 😊 :

I also owned and operated the #1 email traffic or solo ads group in the world for almost 7 years (I acquired that business from someone else). It had 44,000+ members when I sold it:

Most people in the email traffic space used my badge of approval to sell their traffic:

This is not for bragging. This is to tell you that I know what I’m talking about and I’m coming from experience. There are a ton of overnight gurus who come and go….

…I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot of money and then vanish because they didn’t know shit! They feeded on innocent newbie money and then vanished when their reputation got trashed.

So what works?

Long Emails Versus Short Emails:

Long emails are great for building a relationship or giving away a ton of value through content.

But people have attention spans of a gold fish today…. in fact according to Time.com and their research you now have less of an attention span than a goldfish:

The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain.

Time.com → https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/

So what works? I’ll keep it relatively simple and not give you detailed BS that doesn’t even matter. I write for people and not for SEO or Google!

Short emails get higher CTR.
Long emails build trust, authority and goodwill but have lower CTR.

So if your goal is to sell something via email marketing use short emails.

If your goal is to build trust, authority and goodwill use longer emails.

It’s simple.

Stop bothering yourself with things that don’t matter. Don’t major in minor things.

Taking action is more important than any of this stuff.

Use Cases:

If you have a webinar, sales page, VSL that is selling something on the next page and you want to get as many people as possible to the next page use short emails.

A lot of times the sale is lost because you OVERSELL. If the VSL is doing the selling the purpose of your email is to get them to the VSL…

…NOTHING ELSE. And short emails get better CTR so use shorter punchy emails and leave open hooks in the emails that will only be solved when they go to the next page.

Tease….

Use curiosity because that is what gets people to take action:

For example:

I was ashamed that even after 15 years of being online I did not know this simple trick that made Mr. X an additional $15,000 in sales without being salesly.

I’m truly shocked…. and to be honest a little embarrassed because I’ve been doing this a lot longer than Mr. X.

Anyway, he was kind enough to tell me this and when I implemented it I made an additional $X,XXX with little to no effort.

If you’re an affiliate and you don’t know this already – you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

Embarrassingly,
Prashant Sharma

Now if you notice in the email above, I didn’t tell them WHAT it was that got me results. I opened a loop that I didn’t close.

The only way to close this loop is to go to the next page and figure it out for themselves.

This is what gets clicks in emails – CURIOUSITY.

Open Loop

An open loop in copywriting is a technique used to create curiosity and keep the reader engaged. It involves introducing a question, story, or idea at the beginning of a piece but not immediately providing the answer or conclusion. This encourages the reader to continue reading to find out how the loop is closed.

“This one simple trick can instantly boost your productivity? I’ll share it with you in just a moment, but first…”

Netflix and other daily soaps use this technique really well (similar to cliffhangers):

Episode 1 ends with the detective finding a crucial piece of evidence, but just as they are about to uncover its meaning, the screen fades to black.

So if you want to get clicks use short emails.

When to use Long emails:

Long emails are usually value bombs or content aimed at building trust, authority and delivering value…. or if you’re linking directly to your checkout cart part from the email itself.

In that case you’re treating the email as a text-sales-letter rather than just an ordinary email.

The longer the email or VSL or any other marketing material the more people will fall off in the middle.

Same concept is true for videos. Longer videos will only have a handful of people reach the end or completion. They will be higher quality ofcourse because what you’re saying on video is resonating with them but a lot of them will stop watching in the middle and never reach completion.

Short VSL 14 Minutes:

Short VSL 11 Minutes:

Long VSL 52 Minutes (14% Made it the the end):

Back to emails….

Most people don’t read the entire email anyway!

…even if you install heatmaps on your website you’ll notice that most people scroll straight to the bottom then move up to the top and start skimming through the content only stopping in places where they find something interesting.

Same thing with emails. It’s really not different from a website in essence… It’s just text inside an app like gmail app or some other mail app.

Also most emails are read on a mobile phone where you consuming your content is competing against watching a FAIL VIDEO or a FUNNY CAT VIDEO.

Education is never going to be as sexy as these stupid temptations and that is why we have a generation of stupids walking around with their headphones, looking at their screen, being lonely because they never really built any real human connection….

I could go on and on about this generation but I’m someone who looks at the brighter side of things.

So…What this means for us is that you don’t have to be a genius to dominate. Regular folks are killing it online!

No Einstein level IQs.

Just basic common sense will put you in the top 2%.

The only time I use longer emails is when someone has actually invested with me or bought something because they are going to read what I have sent them.

Freebie seekers don’t value your advice even if you’re the president of the country.

They are too occupied and you have maybe 1/4th of their attention.

When To Send Long Versus Short Emails (Time):

The best time to send long emails is in the morning because they check their emails and if you’re good they will read your email. “Without a call to action” emails work best in the morning.

Sales getting emails work best in the evening. I will write an article about this soon but in short – in the evening the brain is already a little tired and it makes it easier for us to sell…

Tested this extensively – not pulling out facts out of thing air.

So morning emails can be motivations, moving, value building etc.

But evenings SELL SELL SELL!

Conclusion:

  1. Short emails get clicks and sales.
  2. Long emails build trust, authority and goodwill.
  3. Short emails in the evening, long emails in the morning.
  4. People’s attention span is less than that of a goldfish.
  5. You’re not just competing against your actual competition but also against cat videos. You’re competing for attention is this scroll happy, click happy economy.
  6. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve easily sent over 20 million+ emails personally!

Here’s my Aweber account as another proof that I know what I’m talking about. And this is after I have easily deleted around 75,000 dormant subscribers over the years!