You don't have to use short sentences throughout - but the occasional use of short sentences is always helpful as a way of breaking the text up.

But you need to make the resultant text flow in a way that is pleasing on the eye.   What this means is having some ebb and flow not just of the sentences but also the meaning.

Here's an example...

Asking for a simultaneous cut in expenditure and an improvement in efficiency seems a bit like asking for a perpetual motion machine – a nice idea but it does rather break the basic laws of physics.

And yet it seems some businesses have found a way to do both at once.

The solution arises from the fact that it can be argued that a quarter of all staff sickness in businesses is attributable to stress.   Which means that a quarter of the money you pay out for temporary staff and to cover sick pay, is due to stress.   

Which means a quarter of the disruption that absences always bring is also due to stress.

You can see the way that the shorter and longer sentences interact with each other.  One of the biggest benefits is that this approach can help bring someone who is skipping down the page back into reading the text.   If you take the line

And yet it seems some businesses have found a way to do both at once.  

what you will find is that someone skipping down will read the shorter sentence.  Now that sentence is not complete in itself - because it doesn't explain exactly what is going on.  If you read that line without reading what went before you are left wondering what the two things are that need to be done.   And that means you have to go back and read it more deeply.

Short sentences are therefore excellent ways of getting the readership rate up - as long as the sentence is long enough to have some sort of meaning in it.   A sentence like "It always works!" doesn't work because there is not enough there to encourage a review of what has gone before.  It is too brazen, too open, to have the effect of making the reader wonder.

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This article is written by Tony Attwood, Chairman of Hamilton House Mailings Ltd.  If you would like to discuss the writing or design of your mailing campaign, or indeed a single mailshot, with Tony, without cost or obligation, just call 01536 399 000, or email Creative@hamilton-house.com   You can also send Tony a copy of your latest advert and he will call you back with his thoughts on how your response rate could be raised - again without cost or obligation.