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What do people read...
E-mail newsletters can be a cost-effective way to build loyalty and keep in touch - but only if you can capture the attention of your audience. People seek out your website, but you need to convince them to read your e-news in an inbox full of emails competing for their eyeball time. So what do people choose to read?
- Tweeted by Joseph Thornely - excerpt from an article from Canadian Marketing Association (CMA)
People tend to read the following first (in no particular order):
1 - Headlines
2 - Sub titles and sub headlines
3 - photo captions
4 - short bolded or highlighted text
5 - small insert boxes
6 - hand written notes
Of course this does not mean you can overwhelm your audience with too many "things that get read" or none of them will get read.
And each of these have different uses in different contexts. For example, a hand written note in an ad on the internet does nothing where a post-it note that is hand written on a mailing gets attention.
So what sort of things grab attention?
1 - Curiosity. if you can arouse curiosity, people will read more.
2 - Humour. If people feel they will be entertained, they will read more.
3 - Powerful benefit for the specific audience. This one is more complex because it involves find the intersection between people who have the need and value the benefit and the readership/viewership of the audience.
4 - Emotion - shock, awe, fear, sex can all grab attention. People buy first with their emotions which is why most large agency ads play to emotions.
Without attention, you do not get read. So it is worth spending time on "what people first pay attention to"
You can expect to see my next newsletter in two weeks. I enjoy creating these weekly tips and thoroughly appreciate your enthusiastic response, but for the next few months I will deliver my tips on e-newsletter, blog, web development and social media bi-weekly.
Thank you for your eyeball time and comments!
Susan Ward
susan@boostbusiness.ca
416-729-8945
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