5 things you need to know before you write your next email

Image: percect stranger by mezone

The fol­low­ing 5 tips are a must read if you want to send emails that leave a good impres­sion, and com­pel the recip­i­ent of your emails to take imme­di­ate action.

1. Be bold: Start with the end

Need an answer from your recip­i­ent? Want them to take a par­tic­u­lar action, like print­ing an attach­ment, send­ing an invite, or call­ing you as soon as pos­si­ble? Tell them what you need in the first para­graph of your message.

If you’re feel­ing bold, then for­mat the “call to action” in a way that stands out from the rest of the mes­sage. Be care­ful in your choice of for­mat­ting: Many peo­ple have found that red fonts will con­vey an implicit mean­ing that you are demand­ing action, rather than sim­ply encour­ag­ing it. That was one les­son I would have pre­ferred to learn the easy way.

2. Try again; do it twice

If you’ve ever tried to cook a fancy recipe for an impor­tant din­ner party for the first time, you’ll prob­a­bly have some pretty embar­rass­ing mem­o­ries to share. We rarely get things right on our first try, which is why we tend to use our loved ones as guinea pigs for our culi­nary exper­i­ments. With that knowl­edge, we really ought to ask our­selves why do we rarely re-read an email before we hit the Send button…

Next time you sit down to write an email, just go ahead and write it. After you’re done with it, go back to the top and read it again. I guar­an­tee you will find a num­ber of changes you want to make as you read through it again. Feel­ing con­fi­dent? Do it a third time — you will sur­prise your­self with some of the sub­tle yet pow­er­ful improve­ments you get on that last run.

3. If it is impor­tant, choose the right time

In their best-seller ’Fish!’, Lundin, Paul & Chris­tensen tell us that one of the three secrets to a happy work life is to “Be Present” for oth­ers. The same applies to writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Some time ago I learned from expe­ri­ence that writ­ing mis­sion crit­i­cal mes­sages to my largest cus­tomers at 11:30 PM after a long day at work was an extremely poor choice.

If the mes­sage is impor­tant, choose the right time to write it. If th mes­sage is not impor­tant, choose the right time to write it too. Make sure you won’t be forced to rush through writ­ing it. And if it is really impor­tant or a let­ter charged with emo­tion, you should fol­low Dan Mill­mans’ advise about E-mail Pro­to­cols:

If you must write an emotionally-charged let­ter, or just an impor­tant
one where clear com­po­si­tion is impor­tant, write it then SAVE it in your
“Drafts” file. SLEEP ON IT and take another look the next morning.

4. Care­fully craft the sub­ject line

Read any advice from the pro­fes­sion­als, and you will be bored to death with mes­sages on the impor­tance of your head­line. Email is no dif­fer­ent. The sub­ject of your email is your head­line; don’t abuse it. Use it wisely, and your mes­sage will be far more pow­er­ful than you could ever dream.

Some pro­fes­sion­als go as far as sug­gest­ing that you should spend half the time choos­ing the title of your arti­cle, and the other half writ­ing the actual arti­cle. In the case of emails, maybe 50/50 is tak­ing it a bit far. Just make sure you don’t under­es­ti­mate the impor­tance of a good sub­ject line.

5. Be succinct

Want your mes­sage to be clear? Want to grab the atten­tion of your reader? Want to dif­fer­en­ti­ate your­self from the thou­sand other emails that arrive in oth­ers’ email inboxes?

Pack a lot of con­tent in as few words as you can. Use the delete key generously.

Be suc­cinct.

Tagged as: How to, Personal Development, Productivity, Tips, Work