By Janus Boye
Ashley and Day, the two happy and proud authors, at the book launch party yesterday in Saratoga Springs, NY
Email is far from dead. With billions of emails sent to and from individuals around the world each day, there is more email now than ever before.
The new book "Mailed It!" is released today and changes everything by:
showing how to craft and send the most effective emails possible
assisting email marketers in improving results
demonstrating how to use emails to build trusting relationships
It's a guide book on crafting emails that build relationships and get results written by Ashley Budd (Senior Marketing Director at Cornell University) and Dayana Kibilds (VP at Ologie). Looking at this lovely book, it’s clear that the authors really want to make email better.
Mailed It! is a new book on email written by Ashley Budd and Dayana Kibilds
The book is not about tricking audiences into opening something that isn’t relevant, and we’ve followed the creation of the book closely during the past year (read Using email for action from December). In a recent members’ call we celebrated the new book with the two authors and heard more about what's inside.
To get the conversation started, the authors shared a few slides on how email is changing, and we also briefly covered a few helpful templates. Let’s start with email behaviour.
Email behaviour is evolving
With more and more email, it was quite interesting to hear insights on how email is being used differently these days. Much has happened since the early days when email was mostly something you checked occasionally on your computer.
Today, people check their emails on vacation, while watching TV, in the bathroom, while they are on the phone with others and even while eating.
The authors shared research on how the time per email keeps going down. Research shows that in 2018 each email was getting a bit more than 13 seconds attention, and in 2022 that’s down to just 9 seconds. This forces you to think hard on how to get your message across when crafting emails - the time you get from your recipient is fairly equal to the time needed to read this sentence.
The seemingly ever increasing amount of emails is forcing a change in email behaviour.
Taking this decreased read rate one step further, the authors shared that only about a third of readers actually spend those 9 seconds on your email and the majority of readers actually only skim or glance for 2 to 8 seconds. This means we only have 2 seconds to get our message across to everyone.
Format your emails for scannability
So if you only have 2 seconds, you need to understand exactly how readers read. In the book, the authors draw on eye tracking research from usability experts Nielsen Norman Group and their widely recognised Text Scanning Patterns.
See below the different patterns as shared by Ashley and Dayana. Use and adopt in your email marketing to improve read rates.
The authors showed us a single action email template (download as PDF) with all the important information in the F pattern. As they say:
“Humans are predictable. People scan emails in an F-pattern before they decide to read. This template places your message exactly where the eyes will glance. “
We also saw their newsletter template (download as PDF). Keep in mind that people skim newsletters first, so you need to get your messages read with descriptive headings and links.
What’s in the email book?
In the same spirit as above: People don’t always read the whole thing. The authors clearly say in the table of contents, that if you read nothing else in the book, you should read chapters 5 and 6, which are both very tactical. Chapter #5 is titled “Email Design and Formatting” and chapter #6 is “Writing Emails People Will Read”.
If you prefer, you can also read the book beginning to end. The book opens with chapters on why email matters and the psychology behind what makes a good email. As the authors say:
“Use these two chapters to impress your boss with your email smarts.”
In chapters 3 and 4 they explain how to build an audience and the different types of strategies you can create to nurture your relationship with them and work toward your marketing goals. Chapter 7 is all about how to manage multiple stakeholders, whether strategising or writing. Chapter 8 shows you how to measure your success. And, finally in chapter 9 they show you how to run an effective email operation, down to the people and tools you need to make it happen.
The book scarcely uses emojis, but if you listen in on the call (recording below), you’ll hear that this was a part of our Q&A. Pro tip: Make sure to check the urban dictionary before using emojis as some might have multiple meanings, not all suitable for work.
Learn more about better emails
The book has a website simply titled: Email book, where you can get a sample chapter and read more about what’s in the book. The authors also offer email workshops for your organisation.
During the call, the authors cited the work by invesp, see: Email Subject Lines – Statistics and Trends.
Ashley hosted one of our most popular 2022 calls which was titled: How to create emails that people want. At the very beginning of 2017, I also wrote this piece: Out of office messages - a missed opportunity?
The conversation on email naturally continues in our peer groups and at our upcoming conferences. Join us and be a part of the conversation.
Finally, there were just a few slides (download PDF) in the call, and you can also lean back and enjoy the recording below.