Chapter 6
Writing Emails That Get Results
In This Chapter
Understanding why email still matters and where it can take you
Writing emails that achieve immediate and long-range goals
Using strategies and techniques that work – and avoiding pitfalls
Love it or hate it, you can’t leave it – email is the nervous system of business life all over the world. Companies may declare e-free Fridays or add newer media like instant messaging or social networks for basic communication but you probably still find that your work life centers on managing your in and out boxes.
The volume and omnipresence of email in your life gives you the opportunity to accomplish your immediate and long-range goals, or screw up both. This chapter shows you how to make the most of this powerful medium and sidestep the traps.
Fast-Forwarding Your Agenda In-House and Out-of-House
If you’re wishing for a way to show off your skills, judgment, competence, and resourcefulness and have decision-makers pay attention, shazam – email is the opportunity.
Yes, everyone is overwhelmed with too much email and wants most of it to go away. The reasons are two-fold: most email is unrelated to your interests and needs, and most of it is badly thought out and poorly written. Take a look through your own inbox. You’re likely to find that most of it falls into one of those two categories – or both.
Then take a look at your outbox. Ask yourself (and why not be honest) how many messages you carelessly tossed off without planning or editing. You may feel that this is the nature of the medium – here one minute, gone the next, so not worth investing time and energy. But email is the tool you depend on to get things done, day in and day out.
Moreover, email has become the delivery system for many forms of communication. In earlier times you’d write a cover letter to accompany a résumé, for example, and today you deliver it electronically. But a cover letter for a job application is still a cover letter – no matter how it’s delivered. A short business proposal may also be sent by email, but like a cover letter, needs to be very well written. Resist the temptation to write such material in an off-the-top-of-your-head fashion. If you’re writing what is essentially a letter, check out Chapter 7. If it’s a proposal, or a marketing pitch, see Chapters 8 and 9, respectively.
Send direct, well-written emails that have a clear purpose and respect people’s time, and you get respect back. People notice and respond to well-written messages, though admittedly, most do so unconsciously.
The higher you go in an organization’s hierarchy, the more people tend to recognize good writing and value it because they see so little of it these days. Executives are acutely aware of how badly written emails, even on mundane matters, can create:
Misunderstandings that generate mistakes
Needless dissent among employees and departments
Inefficiency, because countering unclear messages demands much more communication
A staggering waste of collective time and productivity.
Smart leaders are even more aware of how poor email messaging can affect an organization’s interface with the world at large, resulting in
Weakened company image and reputation
Disaffected customers
Missed opportunities to connect with new customers
Long-term damage to relationships with the public, investors, suppliers, lenders, partners, media, regulators, and donors – all of which directly affect the company’s bottom line.
Email offers huge opportunities to develop relationships in the course of doing business. To build and sustain a network of trusted colleagues and contacts inhouse and out can only benefit you over the long term.
Email gives you access to the loftiest heights. Fifteen years ago the idea that you could directly write to your CEO, or the hiring manager of your dream employer, was unthinkable. Now you can, and she may read it and even respond – if you make your message good.
Email is your entrée to reaching people all over the world. Without it, international trade would depend on mail systems and faxes for making initial contact. Surely email is the unsung hero of globalization.
Getting Off to a Great Start
Your first imperative in drafting an email: draw your reader to open it – and read it. Sound easy? Not at all, given the sheer volume of messages that motivates most people to press the Delete key for any excuse they can come up with. That’s another reason why every email you send must be good: you don’t want a reputation for sending pointless, hard-to-decipher messages that lead people to ignore the important ones that you craft carefully.
With email, the lead has two parts – the subject line and the opening sentence or paragraph. I explore each in detail in the following sections.
Writing subject lines that get your message read
Take another look at your inbox and scan the subject lines. Note which ones you opened and why. Most of them probably fall into one of these categories:
Must-read because of essential information
Subject: New location, May 3rd meeting
Must-read because of urgency
Decision on Plan A needed today
Must-read because of who the writer is (in which case the ‘From’ matters, too)
From: President White
Subject: Department reorganization planned
Want-to-read because you need the information or it may be valuable
Subject: Free tools to recover deleted files
Want-to-read because it looks like a good deal
Subject: Lowest iPhone price ever
Want-to-read because it’s from a trusted source
From: Kickstarter
Subject: Projects we love: mobile murals
Want-to-read because it sounds interesting or fun:
From: Bronx Zoo
Subject: Come see our tiger cubs!
1. Figure out what’s most relevant to your reader in the message – why the person should care.
2. Think of the absolutely most concise way of saying it.
3. Put the key words as far to the left as possible so your recipient understands the meat of your message quickly and easily.
Subject lines work best when they’re as specific as possible. Here are two examples of emails I didn’t open because the subject lines were too vague and general to capture my interest. I also suggest ways the message could work better.
Poor: Important question
Better: Where is tomorrow’s workshop?
Poor: June newsletter
Better: New Twitter techniques in June issue
Ensuring that the most important words appear in your recipient’s inbox window and aren’t cut off for lack of space – or because they’re reading on smartphones and other hand-held devices – is worth the thought every time. Very few people pay attention to this simple principle so build this habit to reap a big advantage.
Following are a few examples of truncated subject lines from my own computer that I didn’t open.
The Coach’s Corner: 9 ways to. . .
Did you ever wish that y. . .
Express yourself with a perso. . .
As an experiment, I opened the last one to see what it was about and found that the full subject line was: ‘Express yourself with a personalized dish’. Had the line begun: ‘Your personalized dish’, or ‘Your name on stoneware’, I’d have opened the email.
Investing in good, accurate subject lines always rewards you. You may not be able to deliver the whole of your subject in the limited amount of characters your recipient’s inbox allows, but try to get the gist across. Ordinarily you needn’t aim to be clever; but if the message is important, spend some time to make the first few words intriguing.
Be sure to review your subject line after you write the whole message. You may shift tack in the course of writing. In fact, the writing process can lead you to think through your reason for creating the message and how to best make your case. Drafting the message first and then distilling the subject line is often easier.
Most people use email as their personal database to draw on as needed, so always label messages in ways that make them findable.
Using salutations that suit
The greeting you use is also part of the lead. Draw on a limited repertoire developed for letters:
Dear. . .
Hi. . .
Hello. . .
You can use ‘Greetings’ or something else but be sure it doesn’t feel pretentious.
Follow with first name or last as appropriate, using the necessary title (Miss, Ms, Mrs, Mr). For the plural, Mesdames and Messieurs definitely feel over the top for English speakers. For groups you can sometimes come up with an aggregate title, such as ‘Dear Software X Users’, ‘Dear Subscribers’, ‘Hi Team’, and so on. Don’t be homey or quirky. Using ‘folks’, for example, can grate on people sooner or later. Avoid generalizations like ‘Dear Customer’ if you’re writing to an individual. These days, people expect to be addressed by name.
Drafting a strong email lead
Because email leads usually include the same information that appears in the subject line, try not to repeat the same wording or the same information. Email copy occupies valuable real estate. Your best chance of enticing people to read the whole message is to make the lead and everything that follows read fast and tight.
Your email lead can consist of one sentence, two sentences or a paragraph as needed. When the subject line clearly suggests your focus, you can pick up the thread. For example:
Subject: Preparing for the August meeting
Hi Jenn,
Since we need the materials for the Willow conference in less than a week, I’d like to review their status with you ASAP.
Often you need a context or clarifying sentence before you get to your request.
Subject: Timing on design hire
Hilary, you mentioned that you’d like to bring in a graphic designer to work on the stockholder report ASAP. However, I won’t be able to supply finished copy until April 3rd.
Note how quickly both of the preceding messages get to the point. Your everyday in-house messages should nearly always do so, whether addressed to peers, subordinates or immediate supervisors. But never sacrifice courtesy. The right tone is essential to make your message work. I talk about that later in the sidebar ‘Finding the right tone for email’.
In the case of messages to people who are outside your own department or company, you often need to include more framing. Suppose you’re responsible for fielding customer complaints and must write to an irate woman who claims your company sold her a defective appliance.
Dear Ms Black,
Your letter about your disappointment with the new Magnaline blender has been brought to my attention. I am happy to help resolve the problem.
Building Messages That Achieve Your Goals
You build a successful email at the intersection of goal and audience. Intuition can take you far, but analyzing both factors in a methodical way improves all your results. Knowing your goal and your audience is especially critical when you’re handling a difficult situation, trying to solve a problem or writing a message that’s really important to you.
Clarifying your own goals
Email often seems like a practical tool for getting things done. You write to arrange a meeting, receive or deliver information, change an appointment, request help, ask or answer a question, and so on. But even simple messages call for some delving into what you really want.
Consider Amy, a new junior member of the department, who hears that an important staff meeting was held and she wasn’t invited. She could write the following:
Tom, I am so distressed to know I was excluded from the staff meeting last Thursday. Was it just an oversight, or should I take it as a sign that you think my contribution has no value?
Bad move! Presenting herself as an easily offended childish whiner undermines what she really wants – to improve her positioning in the department. Instead of using the opportunity to vent, Amy can take a dispassionate look at the situation and build a message that serves her true goal:
Tom, I respectfully request that I be included in future department meetings. I am eager to learn everything I can about how we operate so I can do my work more efficiently and contribute more. I’ll very much appreciate the opportunity to better understand department thinking and initiatives.
With external communication, knowing your goal is just as important. For example, if you’re responsible for answering customer complaints about defective appliances and believe your goal is to make an unhappy customer go away, you can write:
We regret your dissatisfaction, but yours is the only complaint we have ever received. We suggest you review the operating manual.
If you assume your job is to mollify the customer on a just-enough level you may say:
We’re sorry it doesn’t work. Use the enclosed label to ship it back to us, and we’ll repair it within six months.
But if your acknowledged goal is to retain this customer as a future buyer of company products, while generating good word of mouth and maybe even positive rather than negative tweets, you’re best off writing:
We’re so sorry to hear the product didn’t work as you hoped. We’re shipping you a brand new one today. I’m sure you’ll be happy with it, but if not, please call me right away at my personal phone number. . .
For both Amy’s and the customer service scenarios, keeping your true, higher goals in mind often leads you to create entirely different messages. The thinking is big picture and future-oriented: In Amy’s case, the higher purpose is to build a relationship of trust and value with a supervisor and gain opportunities. In the unhappy customer case, you want to reverse a negative situation and cultivate a loyal long-term customer.
Assessing what matters about your audience
After you’re clear on what you want to accomplish with your email, think about your audience – the person or group you’re writing to. One message, one style does not fit all occasions and individuals. As I point out in Chapter 2, when you ask someone to do something for you in person, you instinctively choose the best arguments to make your case. You adapt your arguments as you go along according to the other person’s reactions – his words, body language, expression, tone of voice, inflection, and all the other tiny clues that tell you how the other person is receiving your message in the moment you’re delivering it.
An email message, of course, provides no visual or oral feedback. Your words are on their own. So your job is to think through, in advance, how your reader is most likely to respond and base what you write on that.
Anticipating a reader’s reaction can take a little imagination. You may find you’re good at it. Try holding a two-way conversation with the person in your head. Observe what she says and how she says it. Note any areas of resistance and other clues.
Do you need to consider so many aspects when you’re drafting every email? No, if your goal is really simple, like a request to meet. But even then, you’re better off knowing whether this particular recipient needs a clear reason to spend time with you, how much notice she prefers, if she already has set feelings about the subject you want to discuss, and so on. You can tilt the result in your favor – even for a seemingly minor request – by taking account of such things.
The more major your message is, the more factors you may need to consider. Or perhaps just one facet of the person’s situation or personality may be overwhelmingly important. To shape the right message check out the section ‘Defining your audience: Know your reader’ in Chapter 2 for what’s relevant to the person and the case at hand. Think about the factors that are most relevant in the context of what you’re asking for.
Certain characteristics are always important. Considering your reader’s age, for example, may seem rude or politically incorrect, but business writer beware – especially with emails. Different generations have genuinely different attitudes toward work, communications, rewards, authority, career development and much more. If you’re a Gen Y (born after 1980) or Gen X (born 1965 to 1980), you need to understand the Boomer’s (born 1946 to 1964) need for respect, hierarchical thinking, correct grammar, courtesy, in-person communication, and more. I talk about this fully in Chapter 2.
Read through the completed profile and you see major clues on how to communicate with that important person on a routine basis, as well as how to work with him successfully overall and make yourself more highly valued. You may uncover ways to strengthen your relationship or even turn it around.
Suppose you’re inviting your immediate supervisor, Jane, to a staff meeting where you plan to present an idea for a new project. You hope to persuade her that your project is worth the resources to make it happen. First clarify your goal, or set of goals. Perhaps, in no particular order, you aim to:
Obtain Jane’s buy-in and endorsement
Get input on project tweaks sooner rather than later
Gain the resources you need for the project
Demonstrate what a terrific asset you are (always, always a constant)
You know Jane is heavily scheduled and the invite must convince her to reserve the time. What factors about her should you consider? Your analysis may suggest the following:
Demographics: Jane is young for her position, and the first woman to hold that job. Observation supports the idea that she feels pressured to prove herself. She drives herself hard and works 60-hour weeks.
Psychographics: She is famously pro-technology, a true believer and early adaptor.
Positioning: She has the authority to approve a pilot program but probably not more. She’s probably being groomed for higher positions and is closely monitored.
Personality/communication style: She likes statistics. She likes evidence. She’s an impatient listener who makes decisions when she feels she has just enough information. Her hottest button is being able to show her own manager that she’s boosted her department’s numbers. How to do that probably keeps her up at night, along with how generally to impress her boss toward her next promotion. She takes risks if she feels reasonably sheltered from bad consequences.
Presto! With these four points, you have a reader profile to help you write Jane a must-come email – and even more important, a guide that enables you to structure an actual meeting that accomplishes exactly what you want.
Determining the best content for emails
After you know your goal and audience, you have the groundwork in place for good content decisions. You know how to judge what information is likely to lead the person or group to respond the way you want. (See Chapter 2 for guidance on how to address groups and construct a reader that epitomizes that group.)
Think about audience benefits. This important marketing concept applies to all persuasive pitches. Benefits speak to the underlying reasons you want something. A dress, for example, possesses features like color, style, and craftsmanship, but the benefit is that it makes the wearer feel beautiful. When you’re planning a message and want it to succeed, think about the audience and goal, and write down your first ideas about matching points and benefits.
For example, to draw Jane from the preceding section to that meeting, based on your analysis, the list may include:
Evidence that the idea works well somewhere else
Information on how cutting-edge technology will be used
Potential for the idea to solve a major problem for the department
Suggestion that other parts of the company will also be interested and impressed
Many other ideas may be relevant – it’s great for the environment, it gives people more free time – but probably not to Jane.
Structuring Your Middle Ground
Think of your email message like a sandwich: The opening and closing hold your content together and the rest is the filling. Viewed in this way most emails are easy to organize. Complicated messages full of subtle ideas and in-depth instructions or pronouncements are inappropriate to the medium anyway.
Email’s typical orientation toward the practical means that how you set up and how you close count heavily – but the middle still matters. Typically the in-between content explains why – why a particular decision should be made, why you deserve an opportunity, or why the reader should respond positively. The middle portion can also explain in greater detail why a request is denied, provide details and technical backup, or a series of steps to accomplish something.
1. Write out a neat, simple list of the points to make. One example is the list I created to convince Jane to come to a meeting with a positive mindset in the ‘Determining the best content for emails’ section.
2. Scan your list and frame your lead.
Your lead is the sentence or paragraph that clearly tells readers why you’re writing and what you want in a way most likely to engage their interest.
Starting with the bottom line is almost always your best approach for organizing a message. Remember the reporter’s mantra: ‘Don’t bury the lead.’
Skipping the subject line for now, a get-Jane-to-the-meeting message can begin like this:
Hi Jane,
I’m ready to show you how using new social media can help us increase market share for our entire XL line. After checking the online calendar for your availability, I scheduled the demo for March 5 at 2. Can you meet with me and my team then?
To structure the middle, consider the previously identified points that are most important to Jane:
Evidence that the idea works well somewhere else
Opportunity to use cutting edge technology
Potential to solve a major problem
Potential for wide company interest
You then simply march through these points for the body of the message. For example:
My research shows that two companies in related industries have reaped 15 to 20 per cent increases in market share in just a few months. For us, the new media I’ve identified can potentially move XL out of the sales doldrums of the past two quarters.
Further, we’ll be positioning our department at the cutting edge of strategic social media marketing. If we succeed as I anticipate, I see the whole company taking notice of our creative leadership.
The thinking you did before you started to write now pays handsome dividends. With a little reshuffling of the four points, you have a persuasive memo that feels naturally organized and logical. You not only know your content, but how it fits together.
This process may sound easy to do with an invented example, but actually, working with real ideas and facts is even easier.
How the person you want to meet with may benefit by seeing you
Why your recipient will find your report or proposal of interest
Why the employment manager should read your résumé.
Review the list you assemble, decide which points to include and put them in a logical order. Your list may include more thoughts than you need for a convincing message, and you can be selective. That’s fine. ‘Just enough’ is better than too much.
This basic premise works with longer more formal documents as well, as I show in Chapter 8.
Closing Strong
After you write your lead and the middle, you need to close (and perhaps circle back to fill in or hone your subject line).
If you requested a decision on something, saying something like, ‘I look forward to knowing your decision by October 21st,’ is sufficient.
If you’re delivering a report, your close may be, ‘I appreciate your review. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like additional information.’
In the case of the memo to Jane, the closing might be simply, ‘Please let me know if March 5th at 2 p.m. works for you. If not, I’m happy to reschedule.’
Sign of with courtesy and tailor the degree of formality to the occasion and relationship. If you’re writing to a very conservative person or a businessman in another culture, a formal closing like ‘Sincerely’ is often best. The same is true for a résumé cover letter, which is essentially a letter in email form and should look like a letter.
But in most situations, less formal end-signals are better:
‘Thanks!’ ‘I look forward to your response.’ ‘Best regards,’ or a variant. Generally avoid cute signoffs like ‘Cheers.’ I recommend always ending with your name – first name if you know the person or are comfortable establishing informality. Even if your reader is someone who hears from you all the time, using your name personalizes the message and alerts her that the communication is truly finished.
Actually, your finished message needs one more thing – the subject line. Consider at this point the total thrust of your content. What words and phrases work best to engage your audience’s interest.
The ‘Jane’ subject line, for example, needs to get across that your message is a meeting invitation, suggest what it’s about and emphasize that it is worth her time. Perhaps:
Need you there: 3rd May Demo, Social Media Project
Perfecting Your Writing for Email
Email deserves your best writing, editing and proofreading skills. Often the message is who you are to your audience. You may be communicating with someone you’ll never meet, in which case the virtual interaction determines the relationship and the success of the transaction. At other times, crafting good emails wins you the opportunity to present your case in person or progress to the next stage of doing business.
The following sections run through some of my top tips for crafting text that perfectly suits email.
Monitoring length and breadth
Keep emails to fewer than 300 words and stick to one idea or question. Three hundred words can go a long way (the memo I wrote to draw Jane to the meeting in the preceding section ended up only 145 words total).
Such limits are hard to consistently observe, but you’re wise to remember how short people’s attention spans are, especially for online reading. That’s why you benefit from knowing your central point or request and opening with it. Don’t bury it as a grand conclusion. Nor should you bury any important secondary questions at the end.
Signalling style
Choose words and phrases that are conversational, friendly, business-like, and unequivocally clear. Email is not the place for fanciful language and invention. Put your energy into the content and structure of your message.
Try to make your presentation transparent, eliminating all barriers to understanding. Your messages may end up less colorful than they could be, and that’s OK. Clear, concise language is especially relevant to messages directed at overseas audiences, as I show in Chapter 13.
Going short: Words, sentences, paragraphs
The business writing guidelines I present in Chapter 3 apply even more intensely to email. You want your message to be readable and completely understood in the smallest possible amount of time.
Draw on the plain old Anglo-Saxon word-stock, mostly one-syllable words. Use two syllable words when they express ideas better; three syllables when they’re the best choice, but reserve more lengthy and complex words for when they serve real purpose.
Short sentences work for the same reason. Aim for 10 to 15 words long on average. Paragraphs should be one to three sentences long to support comprehension and build in helpful white space.
Using graphic techniques to promote clarity
The graphic techniques I discuss here don’t require special software or a degree in fine arts. They’re simply ways to visually present information and make your writing more organized and accessible.
Add subheads
Subheads are great for longer emails. You can make the type bold and add a line of space above it. Subheads for email can be matter of fact:
Why decide now
Step 1 (followed by Step 2 and so on)
Final recommendation
Pros and cons
Background
This technique neatly guides the reader through the information and also enables you as a writer to organize your thinking and delivery with ease.
Providing your own structure in this way may make writing easier, particularly if you feel organizationally challenged. It helps ensure that you don’t leave out anything important, too.
Here’s an extra trick. If you feel that you have too many subheads after drafting the entire message, just cut some or all of them out. You still have a solid, logically organized email. Just be sure to check that the connections between sections are clear without the subheads.
Bring in bulleted and numbered lists
Bullets offer another excellent option for presenting your information. They are:
Readily absorbed
Fast to read
Easy to write
Useful for equipment lists, examples, considerations, and other groupings
Don’t use more than six or seven bullets in a list. A long stretch of bullets loses all impact; they become mindnumbing and hard to absorb.
Don’t use them to present ideas that need context or connection.
Don’t mix and match. The items on your list must be parallel, so that they begin with the same kind of word – a verb, a noun, or in the case of my first bullet list, an adverb.
Never use bullet lists as a dumping ground for thoughts that you’re too lazy to organize or connect. If you doubt this advice, think of all the bad PowerPoint shows you’ve seen – screens rife with random-seeming bullets.
Numbered lists are also helpful, particularly if you’re presenting a sequence or step-by-step process. Instructions work well in numbered form. Give numbered lists some air so that they don’t look intimidating – skip a space between each number.
Consider bold face
Making your type bold gives you a good option for calling attention to key topics, ideas, or subsections of your message. You can use bold for lead-ins:
Holiday party coming up. Please see the task list and choose your way of contributing. . .
You may also use bold to highlight something in the body of the text:
Please see the task list and choose your way of contributing by December 10.
Of course, don’t overload your message with bold face or it undermines its reason for being. Keep in mind that boldface doesn’t always transfer across different email systems and software, so don’t depend on it too much for making your point.
Underlining important words or phrases is another option.
Respect overall graphic impact
Using the signature block
Contact information these days can be very complex. Typically you want people to find you by email or telephone. Plus there’s your tagline. Your company name. Your website. Your blog. The book you wrote. The article you got published. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Professional affiliations and offices. And potentially much more.
Decide on a few things you most want to call attention to and refrain from adding the rest. Better yet, create several signature blocks for different audiences. Then you can select the most appropriate one for the people you’re writing to. Don’t include your full signature block every time you respond to a message, especially if you incorporate a logo, which arrives as an attachment. Check your email program’s settings so the automatic signature is minimal, or altogether absent.