Less is More
As a result of my time in academia, I got into the habit of writing a lot. This is ideal for university but less so for the business world because:
(a) You don't tend to write thesis type work at the office (unless you are a consultant charging by the page/hour).
(b) Customers and colleagues have very limited time and attention spans.
The recent kick I'm on is to improve our website and email so that even Homer Simpson could use them.
One of my biggest eye-openers was the impact of cutting down text to the bare minimum. We recently redesigned the membership benefits page on our website. The old word count was over 500. The new word count was less than 160.
The results? The number of subscribers increased by 400% in the first month since we performed cosmetic surgery. Opt-in to our email by subscribers was at 85% where it used to average at 25%. Email is a major sales driver for us.
One month a trend does not make but less appears to be more.
