According to Gary Levitt and Rob Lubow, "In an attempt to break from the herd, many email marketers ironically adopt a herd mentality of more clutter, more content, more MORE." Well, that's exactly the wrong thing to do, apparently.

In email, less is more, Levitt and Lubow say. To help you understand the need to simplify your e-outreach, they offer three key questions to ask yourself before your next email campaign:

1. What kind of email do you want to receive? A personal note from a good friend is likely at the top of your list. And even then, you don’t expect more than a couple of lines of text.
2. How much time will someone invest in an impersonal marketing message that’s also sent to thousands of other people? The answer: Not much. Instead, "[B]e a friend," advise Levitt and Lubow. "Keep it simple. Keep it nice. Make a good subject line that'll earn those 3.5 seconds you need to get your simple message across."
3. Will your message be sharing space with ads? Gmail, AOL and Hotmail are just a few of the providers that frame email with ads these days. "There's only one way to stand out from all those ads," the authors claim. "[L]ook less like an ad."

"Once simplicity is embraced," say Levitt and Lubow, "you're free to converse plainly with your clients—easily and often. Designers, template-selection, and deadly cross-service compliance issues fall away. Your readers save time, too, and love you for it."

The Po!nt: Keep it simple, OK? Where email-drenched clients are concerned, it pays to—get to the point.

Source: MarketingProfs. Click here to read the article.

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