The Two Worst Email Mistakes - Or Why I Don't Read 90% of My Email

By B.L. Ochman

Let’s face it: we’re all drowning in email! We could spend most of our time just managing our inboxes. So why do advertisers and marketers of all stripes keep making the same two stupid email mistakes?

Approximately 90 percent of the 12,000 or so emails I get every month are zapped unread for two simple, maddening reasons:

1- The message is buried
2- The entire message is a graphic. Doh.

At most, the recipient of an email sees 10 lines of text on the first screen of an email (less it they’re reading it on a mobile device.) If you don't get your message in the first three or four lines: it won't get read.

Why then, do so many emailers expect us to scroll through three and more screens just to find they want?

Asking a reader to scroll through more than one screen just to find out what you want to say is not unlike taking five minutes to introduce yourself every time you call your sister. Neither practice is necessary or makes sense.

Between glitzy HTML mastheads, lengthy letters from publishers, boilerplate about privacy policies and just plain garbage prose, it's the rare email that spills the beans in the first few lines.

Ways that publications and advertisers waste space and time include:

o Having an HTML masthead take up the entire first screen of the e-mail then expecting us to read through advertising to get to the table of contents.

o Taking up the entire first screen, and sometimes as many as three screens, reminding us that we actually subscribed to this publication so we are not being spammed; that the mailing list will not be shared and that new subscribers are welcome. And only then, as many as 40 lines later - that's 4 screens in Outlook, etc - are we told what the issue contains. Of course I'll never know, because I won't still be reading and I bet you won't either.

o Using LOTS of white space between paragraphs introducing the issue of a publication, then making us plough through a 10-line ad, a few paragraphs about the newsletter and a privacy statement before we get to the beginning of the first article.

Downloading images to find out what someone wants to tell me is just damn annoying and it wastes my time. All-image e-mail is simply a ridiculous idea, for which there is no excuse. None. I don't need pretty email. I need fast email.

Which brings up a third pet peeve – attachments. Do not send attachments without saying: “If you are interested, I can send you the report, photos, PDF, press release, etc.”

Email peeve Four - Do not send people you don't know (especially me!) 4-page emails about stuff they do not care about, cover, or want to know.

Rant complete. Want to add to it?

Bonus Link:
Seth Godin: How to Send a Personal Email

I agree with all of this. Short and sweet is the way to go and images are a pain. As soon as I see mostly images, I think "marketer". Still B.L. I don't get the attachment peeve...They're small. If they open it, they spend time with that and examine it. No?

Nicholas - the problem with attachments is that they can carry viruses, and they take up a huge amount of space on one's computer.

Opening a PPT file, for example, crashes my MAC.

I won't open unsolicited attachments - and I know corporate firewalls won't allow them either.
BL

B.L., I'll agree that a lot of e-mail is nothing but useless sludge.

However, there are times when getting an e-mail read is quite important. I'm living through one of those times right now.

I've been down with laryngitis and a sore throat for almost a week. I'm not experiencing any illness symptoms (fever, chills, swollen glands, or fatigue), but it's difficult to speak. When I do, I can't say more than a few words before launching into a ferocious round of coughing.

So, the telephone is off limits.

I was scheduled for a dental appointment for today (Thursday). Since Tuesday, I've been e-mailing the dentist's office to tell them that I wouldn't be able to make it.

Tuesday's and Wednesday's e-mails went unanswered. Today's bounced back with an error message saying, in essence, that the address that's linked from the dentist's website is no longer in existence.

So, I have no way of communicating with my dentist, other than to make a printout of the latest e-mail (with the error message) and send it to them in the snail-mail. I hope that will inspire them to fix their e-mail.

As for me, I go bonkers if my e-mail goes down for more than an hour or two. Useless sludge notwithstanding, I do rely on e-mail.

Martha- so sorry to hear you're not feeling well.

my dentist is a major text message user - texts to remind you of appts, asks you to recommend him, tells you when his band is performing, etc.

you'd think, by now, drs would have started using various communications tools.

we all rely on email. that's why it's such a disaster that it's so broken.

Halle-friggin-lujah!!

When the entire message is a graphic is the big one for me. I actually try to get off their list. It takes too much work for me to SEE the message and I know they are never going to see it.

"Pet Peeve - Sending to People you don't know" AND putting my email address on it. Here's a good read on email etiquette as well.