Large Lists, Responsibility & Respect
We dislike spammers largely because they don’t respect our time. But consider: how well do we respect our own audience’s time?
When we send messages we believe worthwhile (note: even casual messages can have reasonable, even great worth on multiple levels), do we truly pay attention to and thus value our audience’s time?
Example – My first cut at this message included 640 words, and it communicated the thesis of this post rather poorly. My second draft communicated better, and came in at 292 words. This final version has but 258 words, including these. My message comes through clearer, and I have thus respected your time by refining my content instead of making you work for it.
The larger your audience, the greater your responsibility to respect their time. Here’s why:
The number of people on your list multiplied by the percentage who read/watch your message multiplied by the number of estimated minutes needed to do so gives us the total estimated minutes your audience spends on your message.
Example:
Suppose 15% of those on your list read or watch it.
You have a list of 10,000 people (not uncommon).
Suppose it takes 2 minutes to read your message.
Here’s the math:
15% * 10,000 people * 2 minutes = 1,500 readers/watchers * 2 minutes = 3,000 minutes (60 audience-hours)
Thus longer messages read by more folks cost your audiences even more.
Thus as you learn to persuade a greater percentage of your audience to read/watch, and as your list continues to grow, the responsibility to respect your list’s time by making every word count also grows.
Thus, be mindful of your success.
