You Are Emailing All Wrong
See me in my office at 10.10 am Tuesday, please
Is nobody reading your emails?
And there’s you plying your way through every single email that comes your way.
What?
I’m kidding. You ain’t reading emails either — we know.
There are 300 billion emails sent every day. About half of those are sent directly to me and the bastards copy me in on the other half.
It’s too much. Who’s got the time?
It’s estimated that 80% of emails never get opened. Gmail blocks 100 million spam email messages every day and that still isn’t good enough — millions more get through.
If you are smart, you will right-click on your junk mail and add the sender to your blocked list.
Easy.
But you can’t do that with everyone.
My job required me to cover two areas. I answered two bosses. Every morning I’d get a bunch of duplicate emails from both. One day, one boss sent me an email:
I note you received my email but deleted it without reading the content.
I replied:
Yes, that’s correct. I was also sent the same email from my other boss, your boss, the big boss and the biggest boss’s secretary. How important is it to you that I choose your copy to read?
The next day, he copied me into an email that I had sent to him.
It’s information overload. Everyone has something to say, sell, or wants you to read to cover their backs. So, how do you differentiate yourself from the rest?
According to research, the best chance of getting your email read is to send it at 10 am on a Tuesday. If you send two emails in the week, send the second one on Thursday. And if you have to send a third, send it on a Wednesday.
People spend their Monday catching up and the first hour or two of any day getting their important business out of the way. Ping your email to them at 10 am and you have a better chance of catching them in a breathe-out moment.
You increase your chances of getting your email read if you personalize the subject line. And shorter headings are better — between six and ten words:
Hey Reader, this is a clever decoy heading.
Don’t hide the important stuff in the body of your text.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, your dog died, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Keep it short and clear.
Don’t water down your ideas or the message by using ‘just’ or ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’.
Don’t use emojis. We like people who smile, but we distrust messages that use little yellow faces to display their emotions. ☹️
Don’t send attachments — unless it is in response to a specific request.
People are wary of opening attachments, they’ve had enough of viruses, and they don’t want to sift through pages of stuff you sent to tick a box.
Get your message into the subject line, if you can. Much better if the recipient doesn’t have to open up the email at all — think of the paper it will save.
To: Reader.
From: Malky
Subject: 1. Hi Reader, I love you.
2. Keep it short. 3. Be clear. 4. No attachments. 5. No waffle. 6. No emojis.
Kind regards
Malky.
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