The other morning I was watching The Today Show and caught a segment on email length. The Today anchors were discussing what is the best way to draft an email and warrant a response. They proposed three separate emails and quizzed each other on which email they thought was most likely to get a response.
Unsurprisingly, the shortest email that got straight to the point was the winner. Even Al Roker commented that he rarely responds to emails that are too long, and as we all know Al Roker is the nicest man in America so when even he is ignoring excessively long emails, you gotta realize that your email’s length is just as important if not more important than your email’s content.
The segment got me thinking on how Public Relations people could learn something from this study.
When I started out inPublic Relations, my pitches used to practically be five paragraph essays. In an effort to make sure all of the important information was coming across, I would completely over-sell and over-explain my client’s news or my story idea. That’s not to say that I was never effective, but I have become a significantly stronger pitcher once I realized that my emails were simply WAY too long.
It’s easy to forget this, but reporters are regular people just like us. They’re much more likely to respond to a pitch when you keep it simple, get straight to the point immediately and communicate effectively right in the first few sentences what the story is. They don’t want or need to read through three paragraphs worth of background information to decide whether or not the story is for them.
According to another study reported on by Today, if people are going to respond to an email, 90 percent will do it within a day, and half will fire off a response in under an hour. The study also found that more than half of email responses contain fewer than 43 words, and the most common responses contain five words. I can completely attest to this – most of the time I get responses to pitches, the emails are less than two sentences.
If responses are so straight and to the point, shouldn’t initial outreach be as well? Not to mention, since most people respond within a few days, if you find yourself constantly being ignored, this might be a sign to go back and review your email and think about what information can be cut.
Basically, when it comes to drafting emails and especially to sending pitches, always remember the K.I.S.S. rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
