Why Everyone Is Using P. S. Again: the Psychological Trick Behind Modern Email Sign-Offs
When physical constraints evaporated, the postscript refused to die. Instead, commercial writers recognized an instinctual cognitive quirk: humans read letters backwards.
During the direct-response boom of the late twentieth century, German researcher Professor Siegfried Vögele ran groundbreaking eye-tracking studies on how consumers interacted with commercial envelopes. His findings revolutionized direct mail design. Readers did not consume letters linearly. They verified their name, checked the signature to see who was speaking, and immediately jumped to the postscript.
Vögele determined that over 90% of recipients read the P.S. before reading the body text. In direct-response fundraising and commercial mailers, that final sentence became the most valuable real estate on the page. Copywriters stopped treating it as an afterthought note. They began writing the P.S. first, using it to restate the primary offer, introduce an urgent deadline, or offer a risk-free guarantee.
| Era | Primary Function | Typical Reader Behavior | Strategic Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parchment & Quill (Pre-1900) | Logistical correction for missed information | Read sequentially from top to bottom | Preserve expensive paper and save labor |
| Direct Mail (1970, 1999) | Secondary headline and hook | Scanned immediately after the sender's signature | Reiterate guarantees, coupons, or deadlines |
| Digital Inboxes (2020, 2026) | Call to action, personal aside, or algorithm loop | Targeted by scroll-skimmers hunting key takeaways | Drive click-through rates and convey authenticity |
The email marketing psychology governing modern newsletters directly descends from Vögele's research. Inbox fatigue is severe. Readers skim through multi-paragraph updates, but their brains treat isolated, bottom-weighted text as an executive summary.
