10 tips for writing effective emails that will help you get what you want
By: Sarah Kathleen Peck, Brazen Life
Email needs to change. It’s an outdated system with a terrible track record of effectiveness. It’s difficult to share documents, the system is built around individuals (not projects) and the knowledge buried within inboxes can be impossible to find and recover. Some companies have gone so far as to entirely eliminate email from their work structure.
Yet email often seems to define our days. It takes up as much as 25 percent of your workday. We’re stuck with it as long as we need to communicate with other people who use email (re: everyone.)
Plenty of tricks can make email more efficient and the best way to wrangle email starts with you; you need to write better emails. In today’s world of fractured digital communication, strong writing is an essential skill, no matter your job title. By writing better emails, you can improve your bottom line — whether it’s for your employer or your own personal gain.
By following these 10 tips, you can avoid some of the most common email mistakes and learn to write effectively to get what you want.
1. Send emails when you don’t need something
The best time to build any relationship is before you need something. A friend of mine has the habit of sending five different notes each Sunday night to check in with people he likes, admires or thinks of. One of his emails might look like this:
‘Hey, saw some great news about you — just wanted to say congratulations! I love watching what you’re up to through my various news feeds, and I wanted to send a note to say I hope you’re doing well.’
Email doesn’t have to be a reflexive tool. You can use it proactively to start conversations as well. It’s great for reaching out to folks you want to be in touch with and an actionable way of practicing gratitude.
2. Remember there’s a person on the other side of your email
You wouldn’t walk into a friend’s house for dinner and bark out a command. The same is true for email. Niceties can go a long way.
Pleasantries aren’t dated constructs; they’re valuable warm-up phrases for effective communication. Start your messages warmly, comment on your recipients’ latest achievements and wish them well:
‘Hope all is well in your corner of the world! If Facebook’s telling me the scoop, it looks like you had an eventful month…’
3. Send at the right time
Consider the timing of the message and if the recipient needs to receive this email immediately. Just because you’ve written your message doesn’t mean you need to send it now. Now might not be the best time (especially if it’s the middle of the night.)
Evaluate whether or not the message is urgent. Fire off the messages that need immediate replies and consider holding off on others until morning.
Unless it’s truly an emergency or crunch time (like weekend launches, for example), it’s unlikely someone needs to see your email the moment you finish writing it. Plus, sending emails on weekends or late at night shows coworkers you’re available to work even during your off hours.
Why not protect your own time and space and set up healthy boundaries?
4. Delete people from the “to” field
More recipients doesn’t mean you’ll receive more replies. It’s like the boy who cried wolf. The more emails you send, the less seriously your coworkers will take you. By developing a reputation for blasting messages to everyone in the office, whether the message is relevant to them or not, you erode your chances of anyone actually opening your emails.
The best email is one that’s sent to exactly who it needs to go to, with a specified desired outcome.
5. Remember to send updates and interim messages
Waiting for delivery on a project can seem interminable. If there’s a long delay in sending a highly anticipated item or you’ve experienced a few hiccups, send a one-line email to update people on the project’s status.
6. Don’t forget to ask for what you want
It’s surprising how many emails are difficult to decipher because the sender has forgotten to include the most important part of the message: their call to action, or what they want from you.
Before writing your message, think about the action or outcome that you want people to do. What will they do upon receipt of your message? Then begin with the end. Write your desired outcome first — the question you want answered or the action you want taken.
7. Write less, not more
As a general rule, the shorter, the better. Get to your point and your ask. Only include details that provide context and understanding. By writing less, you say more.
After you’ve written your post or essay, go back and delete the first and last paragraph. Many writers ramble too much in introductions and conclusions. Try deleting entire sentences and paragraphs to make your email short, sweet and punchy.
8. Take email breaks
You could probably spend your whole day in Outlook or Gmail simply pushing emails around. Shut down it down for a bit. Take breaks, dive into bigger projects and give space to your team and clients to take their own action.
Sending emails all the time is not always the most efficient — or the most useful — use of your time.
9. Listen to the voice of the sender
In person, we modify and change our behavior based on who we’re talking to. You can do the same for email. Match your email-writing style to that of the recipient, if you can.
10. Study the pros
I save essays from my favorite writers, print them, then highlight them to study how people write effectively. The words you enjoy the most have patterns and clues to great writing. It may seem silly to study the art of writing for the sake of improving your email correspondence, but keep in mind that email is an important vehicle to getting things done.
A well-written email can get you fast answers, motivate people to take action that matters for your bottom line or clarify something that’s standing in the way of your project’s success.
Here are a few exercises to help you become more conscious of what works and what doesn’t in emails:
Examine the subject lines in your inbox
What five emails did you open first today? What did the headlines say? Jot those down. Circle words that felt great. Were they long or short? What made you want to click? Take one you like and find a way to do something similar for your business.
Start with a bang
Use powerful intros. Skim five opening paragraphs of The New York Times with a highlighter and see what you like about each one. Convert it to your own style.
End with a boom
Wrap up emails with a punchy statement, a leading question or a call to action. If you’ve deleted your first and last paragraphs, perhaps there was a sticky statement you wanted to keep. Distilling that idea into one sentence could do the trick.
Instead of allowing your email to manage your day, figure out better ways to manage your emails. By writing clearly and articulating what you want, thinking through when you’ll send it and considering who will get your messages, you can make your life a lot easier.
