I’ve got a book recommendation for you: Writing for Busy Readers by Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Finch.
It’s a fascinating read and is packed with practical tips and useful advice about writing more effectively. But one of the things I most enjoyed was how much original research the authors had conducted to build their argument.
Here are three of my favourites, on the topic of using fewer words to get your message across more effectively.
The first piece of research offers a useful insight for everyone; the second two offer interesting insights for copywriters and marketers in particular.
In the first study, the authors conducted a survey that showed people these two emails (they were deliberately blurred):
Of the 166 people who responded to the survey, 165 people said they’d deal with the shorter email first.
In the second study, the author sent two versions of an email to 7,002 school board members across the US. Both emails asked recipients to complete a short online survey. One email was 127 words; the other was 49 words.
The 49-word email got nearly twice as many responses as the 127-word email.
But here’s my favourite piece of research. It involved fundraising emails sent to 776,145 potential donors to a political candidate.
The original email had six paragraphs and ended with the donation appeal.
In the shorter email, the authors (with the campaign’s permission!) arbitrarily deleted every other paragraph and ended with the donation appeal.
Respondents thought the shorter email followed less coherently from one paragraph to the next when compared to the original.
But here’s the thing: even though it made less sense, the shorter email raised 16% more than the original.
I don’t know about you, but I love research like this that proves what we instinctively know about something. If you’ve got any favourite research gems (on writing or otherwise!), let me know 😃
