Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)

gkogan.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 127 posts

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

#81

Post by gk1 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #36

What about the effects on branding / user perception of the message? While the first short email feels ok, the straight-shooter 'Hi, I can see you signed up, what do you want from us?' version feels awkwardly impolite. I find it still obvious that it is an automated message and the attempt at 'being human' makes it even less appealing. This kind of metric chasing most likely results in dark patterns and subpar experi…

Every company should find their balance between brand and optimization. Amazon will implement practically any change that shows an improvement to some KPI, while Nike would rather preserve their brand image at the cost of, say, lower checkout rates.

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

#82

Post by tijuco2 »

This article led me to another one about email designing which states that plain text emails get more clicks than those with fancy templates. I can relate to that. Every time a see a see an email in plain text I stop to check what it is.

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

#83

Post by TameAntelope »

rubyron wrote: post #12

It wasn’t just the length of the email body they changed in the 3rd variant... they also changed the subject line from “Welcome to Netlify” to “Question...”, but that change wasn’t mentioned as a potential contributor to the good result. I’m betting that change resulted in a big increase in open rate. I’m conditioned to ignore “Welcome to AcmeCo”-style emails.

FWIW I'm also conditioned to ignore emails that are vague. Honestly, at this point I assume any unsolicited communication is a spear phishing attempt until proven otherwise.

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

#85

Post by austinl »

The most effective recruiting emails I receive (in terms of how likely I am to reply) are:

* Plain text

* Directly addressed to me from name@company.com

* 3-4 sentences max, slightly personalized

* Optionally have a link to the company career page/job listing (better if the raw link is pasted instead of embedded in text, to save me the time hover-checking it).

I'm more likely to reply because it feels like there's a real person on the other end that "hand-wrote" this email. Not some amorphous system that crawled my LinkedIn and sent me an automated message. Kudos to recruiters that are doing this — doing the thing that doesn't scale to get an edge.

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

#86

Post by khazhoux »

codingdave wrote: post #78
khazhoux wrote: post #72

This applies to internal emails, especially requests to management chain. Whenever possible, aim to keep emails to two lines/sentences max, and put the request always first.

This depends on your management. If they trust you, and typically give you what you need, sure.. request first. But if they are more the kind where it is like pulling teeth to make changes or get more resources, then no - first you need to establish the reasons behind your need, explain the negative impact to the team, propose a solution, and explain how it will benefit the broader organization. You still need to do…

Sure, context matters. But an important lesson I learned only after 10+ years in the industry is that senior execs slice their time and mind-share very thinly. As a very junior engineer I would send out paragraphs explaining the background of an issue, discussions so far, proposals, etc, and sometimes I wouldn't even have an actual request. And then wonder why I got no reply.

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

#87

Post by Theodores »

danenania wrote: post #75

A corollary is that if you do have to write a long email, try to start it off with a short, 1-2 sentence intro paragraph that piques interest and pulls people in to the rest of the text. Even better, try to keep all the paragraphs as short as possible. Each paragraph has two jobs: to convey some information, and to convince the reader to keep going to the next paragraph. Done right, you can get someone to read a long…

Well, I read your entire comment!

Seems to work nicely.

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

#88

Post by austinl »

austinl wrote: post #85

The most effective recruiting emails I receive (in terms of how likely I am to reply) are: * Plain text * Directly addressed to me from name@company.com * 3-4 sentences max, slightly personalized * Optionally have a link to the company career page/job listing (better if the raw link is pasted instead of embedded in text, to save me the time hover-checking it). I'm more likely to reply because it feels like there's a…

I should add that the key to good writing (in most domains) is to be concise. Editing is primarily about cutting what's unnecessary, but it's often treated like the part where some words are swapped out with fancier ones (e.g. "use" to "utilize").

I'm a big fan of PG's essay, Write Like You Talk, on this topic.

http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html

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

#89

Post by mekoka »

I suspect two things to be at work here (among possibly many):

- First, reciprocity. If you send me an email with a one-liner, I will feel that replying in kind would be adequate. A verbose email on the other hand, may have the opposite effect of creating a feeling that I should also be more detailed (which you may not even need). My response might be to set your email aside with the purpose of addressing it later when I have more time (we all know that famously elusive promise of a future that never materializes).

- The second point is slightly in line with the previous, but different. The length of the message can be used to estimate the cost of a conversation. A short message can be perceived to announce a one-off (cheap) exchange, whereas a verbose message may seem like the beginning of a more involved (expensive) one where if I engage, you will ask even more from me (how much exactly, nobody knows). That uncertainty is uncomfortable enough that I may not want to respond at all.

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

#90

Post by criddell »

jjclarkson wrote: post #84

tldr: people don't read lengthy text.

If I'm not expecting the email I generally won't read it unless I know the person who wrote it.

It's part of the reason I think the mailing list gold rush has peaked and will probably decline. I don't know many people that want more email.

Post reply on HN