BUSINESS
Empowering the synopsis in your email
15-01-2009
by denise cox
A synopsis - sometimes referred to as the executive brief or intro text - is what drives the actions of email newsletter readers. There are two uses of the synopsis in an email -- to read on or to click through. A publisher will make a choice based on what they want to achieve with their mailings and often it will be a combination of both.
The first choice is to get readers to open and read – no need to click. The synopsis provides all the information in the email. Paragraphs should be short – no longer than 100 words. Use space to make the information you are providing easier to scan, and make use of bold and italics for emphasis.
The second choice is to get readers to open, read and, more importantly, click. Don’t just copy and paste the first paragraph from the original article. Instead craft text that sells the sizzle – gives just enough information to entice people to click for more. Remember that people scan, so keep the length of this type of synopsis down to 25 – 35 words.
[source: denise cox, Newsweaver]
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