More effective e-mails in five steps
Know your contacts
Are you familiar with your contact’s habits; do you know what is important to them or how they react? Try to take advantage of this information to achieve your goal. Suppose you want to convince your boss of a new idea for the company. If you understand the goals your boss has set and if you can explain how your idea contributes to them, you will have a much better chance of success.
Timing is everything
Research has shown that if you are to get a quick response, it is best to send e-mails in the morning. Indeed, the first thing many people do in the morning is check their mailbox, generally beginning with the latest messages. So if you send your message between, say, 7.00am and 8.00am, it is likely to appear at the top of their mailbox and will be read quickly.
Tip. In a program such as Outlook, you can prepare your e-mail in advance to send later.
It’s recommended that you send newsletters at noon or just before the weekend, because people will have time for some distraction.
Tip. You could try choosing a time with less competition, e.g. Sunday afternoon.
Subject: the more concrete the better
People who receive lots of e-mails every day will decide which message they will read first, or even which e-mails they will delete immediately purely on the basis of the subject line. This means that your subject line should say it all. Make it as informative as possible, e.g. “Information about software package X” ; “Preparing the agenda for the staff meeting on Monday” ; “Report of site visit at X” , etc.
Message: get to the point first
Your message must get to the point immediately, otherwise your busy contact may quit after two sentences without reading what you actually expect from them. If you want to schedule an appointment, make a concrete proposal first of all - this makes it easier for your contact person to answer with a simple “OK”. Also mention when you would like to receive an answer. In the case of a newsletter, you could start with a catchy statement that arouses curiosity and incites the recipient to continue reading.
Call to action
Suppose you have to draw up a report and you need some graphs that only your colleague can provide. How do you get them to deliver everything on time? You can combine a few tricks:
- add a sense of urgency to your message, e.g. by mentioning the deadline very explicitly at the beginning. Tip. Adding the word URGENT to the subject line is a possibility, but only if it is really urgent. If you exaggerate, people will no longer pay attention to your allegedly “urgent” messages
- describe exactly what you need to avoid receiving something that you didn’t expect
- make things as easy as possible for your colleague, e.g. “attached you will find an example of the desired format for the graphs” . That way, you avoid endless conversations back and forth.
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