The exotic Victorian era cure for un-boring your emails…

„But what about people’s short attention spans?“ the journalist asked, intrigued. „Who will read four pages in small type?“

„Aha!“ replied Adams with a smile. „That’s something of a misconception which many of my colleagues still strongly believe in…“

The journalist leaned in.

„You see, you can make your ad as many pages as you want, in as small a type as you want… as long as you make it interesting and dramatic to the reader.“

This is how I imagine a certain conversation – between a journalist and a man called Adams – played out.

Let me explain:

I was just re-reading this book for probably the 12th-13th time now…

(Although it’s only 44 pages, so it’s more of a booklet – but I’ll keep calling it a book anyway.)

The book in question is „Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman”. And every time I do another re-read of the book…

…I get something new out of it.

Like an idea for this email, for instance – here’s the paragraph which inspired me to write this email out:

===

Adams also discovered that advertisements did not always have to shriek out their message in two-inch type. He proved that people would read a four-page advertisement set solid in small type, if it were made interesting and dramatic like any other good story.

===

Some context:

Adams is this top-dog ad agency guy, and he’s being interviewed by a journalist about the secrets to his success in that business…

(That’s the TLDR of the book.)

Now here’s the interesting part:

This book came out in 1916.

Yes, this book is 110 years old as of this writing…

(Although Adams had been in business for 20+ years up to that point – so he was already implementing this back in the late 1800s.)

Which just proves how utter NONSENSE the entire ‘people’s attention spans have never been lower’ claim is.

People actually don’t have goldfish-like attention spans…

…and you don’t have to dumb down all of your ads/content/emails to 6-7 seconds just to cater to that.

No.

People’s attention spans are the same as they’ve always been…

It’s just that the vast majority of marketing in this industry – and in general…

Is paint-dryingly boring and flat.

(This is a problem compounded by AI even more.)

The recipe for getting – and KEEPING – someone’s time and attention for consuming your ads/content/emails…

(And as a corollary, getting the purchase decision.)

…is the same as it has been for the past 10 years… for the past 100 years… for the past 1000 years.

Making your ads/content/emails relevant, interesting, and entertaining.

I have been SHOUTING THIS FROM MY HEEL VEINS FOR AGES…

Yet even the last time I opened up this Pandora Box that the whole goldfish attention span myth is…

(Which was in the „What Zack Snyder knows about the perfect email length (and how you can profit like gangbusters from it…)”email…)

I STILL had someone convincing me – after that email – how their subscribers have a dopamine-fried brain… and that they can’t focus on anything for more than 5 seconds.

No you don’t,

Your ad/content/email was probably just really boring.

If you won’t take it from me…

At least go pick up the book and listen to Adams instead.

Whatever.

I think I’m done trying to dispel this annoying myth that’s parroted from all sides of the interweb…

If you still think you have to dumb everything down to TikTok-esque short-form content?

(Although you already reading 600+ words of this email goes completely against that line of thinking… but okay.)

Then I can’t help you.

And if I can’t help you, I don’t want to work with you – my „Email Storyselling“ methodology goes completely against this…

(If you want some examples, check out the Appendix section in my Book.)