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To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

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Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#51

Post by ponker »

formerly_proven wrote: post #17

The shorter the email the more believable it becomes that it was specifically written by a human directed at you, not a mass-used template. If you feel like you get an automatic email, you're not going to respond, because you don't want to talk to a computer. If, on the other hand, you can suspend your disbelief and entertain the fiction that someone named "Valerie" at E-Corp personally contacted you, you are infinit…

When I had a startup I did personally email every user until we got to about 10,000 or so. Didn’t use a template, fired off a new email every time.

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#52

Post by dgb23 »

janwillemb wrote: post #15

I've noticed this too in emails to coworkers. If the email is long enough, they just skip it to "read it later". This is quite frustrating, because sometimes you just _have_ to communicate some more words.

I think this also applies to any document/article/text that is mainly there to convey information.

People will skim through it quickly to extract relevant facts of interest. The longer the text, the harder this is and the less likely someone will do it.

In English we call it "Wall of Text" in German sometimes "Bleiwüste"[0].

Things that help:

- using bullet points

- simple, clear language

- a concise abstract/tldr

- interactive elements when possible such as links and expandable elements:

In HTML there is a standard element that is seldomly used but to me seems very useful: the / element[1].

I think it should be used more often! Perhaps in combination with a more distinct color/styling too.

Here is an interesting tutorial/article that uses it[2]. You can expand text to get more background information and explanations on certain topics.

This practice condenses the text, making it less daunting at a first glance and also makes a clear distinction between core content and supplementary information, which increases the overall structure.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleiw%C3%BCste

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/de...

[2] https://x775.net/2019/03/18/Introduction-to-Datalog.htm2

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#53

Post by gk1 »

cnity wrote: post #47
formerly_proven wrote: post #17

The shorter the email the more believable it becomes that it was specifically written by a human directed at you, not a mass-used template. If you feel like you get an automatic email, you're not going to respond, because you don't want to talk to a computer. If, on the other hand, you can suspend your disbelief and entertain the fiction that someone named "Valerie" at E-Corp personally contacted you, you are infinit…

That's one thing, but another thing that is not listed as one of the possible reasons is simply that the original email is just verbose and _bad_. Imagine a person in real life gave you that spiel, of course you'd be put off.

> the original email is just verbose and _bad_

I agree 100%. The thing is, a lot of welcome emails look like that. It's bad but not uncommon.

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#54

Post by gk1 »

daguar wrote: post #49

This is neat! That said, I don't think the statistical size makes this a conclusion you can draw: - "a reply rate of 1% (1 in 100 users)" - "a reply rate of 4% (1 in 25 users)" - "a reply rate of 8% (1 in 12 users)" Sorry to say but... we really can't draw a conclusion like this strictly from these kinds of numbers. Totally possible these conclusions ARE true, but I'd test at a bigger scale and/or with qualitative re…

The sample size was more than big enough to get a significant result. (Netlify was very popular even in 2017.)

"1 in 100" = "one in every 100"

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#55

Post by leegraham »

goldemerald wrote: post #37

These results seems quite suspicious to me. In all instances the author only received 1 email in reply. If you run these results through an A/B testing calculator, they aren't statistically significant. That's even the case for the 1% conversion compared to the shortest email 8% conversion. I like the thesis statement that short emails convert users better, but the experimental results certainly aren't strong enough…

Maybe I misunderstood the article, but my impression is that the ‘ 4% (1 in 25 users)‘ is just to make the percentages more understandable and the author didn’t only send the email to 100/25/12 users.

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#56

Post by davnicwil »

knownhoot wrote: post #50
davnicwil wrote: post #30

I've recently launched https://boxci.dev and have a 'leave your email if you have questions' box on the landing page. People have been leaving their emails, but surprisingly, even though the intent is very clear (I think), almost nobody has actually replied when I've emailed to open the conversation. The kinds of response rate percentages ( My opening email is nothing like as long as the first one in this article, bu…

I wonder how many of the users that complete the form mistake it for a newsletter subscribe, as that's commonly where subscribe widgets live.

Yeah, great point, I think this might be the case. I'd been thinking perhaps a chat widget or link to a slack channel or something might be more useful, and clear in its purpose.

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#57

Post by gk1 »

leegraham wrote: post #55
goldemerald wrote: post #37

These results seems quite suspicious to me. In all instances the author only received 1 email in reply. If you run these results through an A/B testing calculator, they aren't statistically significant. That's even the case for the 1% conversion compared to the shortest email 8% conversion. I like the thesis statement that short emails convert users better, but the experimental results certainly aren't strong enough…

Maybe I misunderstood the article, but my impression is that the ‘ 4% (1 in 25 users)‘ is just to make the percentages more understandable and the author didn’t only send the email to 100/25/12 users.

That's correct. I'm editing it to say "1 of every 25 users" to make this less confusing. The actual sample size was quite large.

Re: To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

#58

Post by Macha »

leetcrew wrote: post #39
iflp wrote: post #3

> Even if you follow all the best practices around emails, genuinely want to help them, and spend a long time writing a personalized email, people still don’t respond. How do you write a personalized email for a new user?

unless you're going to have an actual human do it, I think it might be better to just not try. I get tons of messages on linkedin from recruiters who say something like "wow impressive profile! based on your experience at {current role}, we think you'd be a great fit for company XYZ". except company XYZ is always some web service company in a totally different domain. my current job is working on a niche desktop c++…

On that topic, it also doesn't change my mind if you have a bot send a template email or you have a human blindly fill in and send a template email.
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