Everyone knows how to write an email. But writing an effective email which helps you accomplish your purpose comes with practice and focus. Focus of this article is not to improve speed of mail processing but to make it effective to get your required attention and actions.
Basic nut bolts
Let us start from the top of the email …
Address boxes also known as To, CC and BCC Box.
When you are sending any email, you must see who is in the TO, who is in the CC and who is in the BCC box. All these should be there for some purpose. If you know who they are and what role they play, you must either keep them or remove them from address boxes. Whatever you are writing should be in their context. You may want to remove few people and add few more to these lists, and write it clearly on top of email body that what and why you have done so. This will avoid any confusion among existing recipients or missed ones (They will get to know even though they are not in mail – mails can fly)
Evaluate, if you can manage with a simple REPLY instead of REPLY ALL. Same with Forward verses reply all with a new person in the mail chain. When you forward an email, you are still owning the communication but when you reply all with inclusion of a new person, new person is also part of the chain. You can decide based on what you want to achieve. If you want to keep ownership, forwarding works. If you want to delegate or pass it to someone else to own, inclusion works.
You must also ensure that people in the email chain are authorized people to get information in full mail body including your reply. There may be some content in your mail chain which is not to be shared with people in the mail chain. It becomes very important when you add more people. Many times data leak or privacy/confidentiality breach happens because of these mistakes – forwarding/reply all with new people.
Now comes, subject line… is it relevant to the topic being discussed. If not , you want to make it appropriate and declare in the mail body why you have changed the subject line. If you are initiating the mail, you can define a subject which gets the best possible attention of recipients.
Making body to move things
Top few lines are the most important ones– they must be attention grabber like subject line…these must grab attention of all the people who need to take any action or who will be impacted in a big way because of this communication. This will ensure that they go through the email seriously if they have to (They must if they are impacted parties). Normally people loose focus post few lines. That’s why you want to grab their attention so that they remain alert till end if they are impacted people.
Next few lines in body should be brief summary of the mail, if your mail has lot of content. This helps executives to make sense out of your mail for further action, if needed. If your mail is small one, you may just want to use bullet and clear points which you want to communicate.
Post that you can have all your content, plus attachments etc. Make sure that key messages, keywords etc. are highlighted in such a manner that they get better attention than other words. In verbal communication, main message is mostly at the last. But in mail communication, I think, initial message is the key one.
Attention grabbers or so called hook can also include default way forward in case recipients don’t respond to the mail in a reasonable timely manner. This makes sure recipients know the consequence of not replying or missing reading mail (mostly this happens because of email overload).
As a best practice if impact of no response is serious, you must send few reminders before timeline is over. This will remove any chances of missed emails, and you take away right from the person to make “I missed your email” excuse. People can not miss many mails – if they are saying so… they are liar!
It is for them
Since you are writing email to get help for yourself. People may debate that emails are not for our help always. My opinion is that they are always for our help. You just have to change perspective. Anything which you communicate to anyone is basically you want them to know or act so that your purpose is achieved. Hence it is for them or they will be impacted ones else why would you inform them.
Make life easy of respondent
Coming back to main point that you want to make sure person who is supposed to reply has all relevant data to act on. For example, if you want him to submit any survey, please do add link once again. If you want him to call you, provide your number once again. There is no harm to make his/her life easy with information which is going to get you faster response.
Give them decision options
If you are looking for his decisions on a topic, please provide few options to chose from, and if possible your recommendation along with a reason. Very good chances are that you will get faster reply. You are helping recipient in helping you.
Don’t react but respond
If you are not in correct mood, you may want to hold on your reply for few hours. It is guaranteed that your reply will be meaningful and more constructive. Please avoid to & fro single line emails which are typically emotional outbursts, and do not help anyone in mail chain. It is better to respond with all details.
Mails are never private.
They don’t have wings but they fly. When you are writing to someone, imagine the senior most executive of yours is in the CC. It will change the tone of your email and also will bring different perspective. This also brings organization priorities in front of you. In case mail gets forwarded to others, your email was already prepared keeping that context in mind including CEO.
Own the forwards
Never forward mail as is, unless your purpose is to show mail of someone else. If you are forwarding, please do write forwarding comments on top of it. It could be your analysis, your summary, your understanding, your decision etc. But you should not forward it like a postman. You should own the content and provide your opinion about it to add value in chain. Depending on audience, you may have multiple levels of summaries. Simple user perspective for non-tech users, and tech summary for tech. Recipients can choose what details they want to get into.
Non Responsive people
Many times, you may face people who are not comfortable with mails. They wont reply because of some reason. There is no harm to write a quick mail to cover important point which brings clarity to your action or help you move forward in taking some actions. Obviously, it should be as per your understanding and opportunity for other person to correct you in reasonable timed manner. If there is no response in given time, you have reason to move ahead with your understanding. Here key assumption is that no response action is not a very serious one. If it is serious one, you must send multiple reminders to avoid any human mistake from other side.
Minute the talk
Importance of written communication is of huge value post long verbal discussion. Things can be misunderstood or completely missed in long discussion. Reverse acknowledgement for problem understanding, action plans, decisions taken or solution approaches can be so helpful that they can save hours and days of effort most of the time. These few minutes can be game changer in your and team’s productivity habit.
It is not easy to come out of old practices. It takes time but for sure it is doable. You must start with few. It has ripple effect. One success triggers another habit. It is a loop and slowly you will get into higher and higher orbit of mail productivity.
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