Popular email clients like Gmail show the first 50 or so characters of the body copy in the inbox view. So a clear subject line and a concise, actionable lead sentence will make it most likely to get chosen.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
The (Not So Difficult) Trick To Get Your Emails Read
Popular email clients like Gmail show the first 50 or so characters of the body copy in the inbox view. So a clear subject line and a concise, actionable lead sentence will make it most likely to get chosen.
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This is a really great article, but writing these emails is definitely easier said than done. It is extremely difficult to be concise in emails to potential employers when you are trying to draw them in and get them to interview or hire you. However, this article does give good advice and examples on how persuasive, concise emails can be achieved. It is true that most emails to employers go unread, and most are deleted. Today, everyone's inboxes are so full that it is easy to miss even an extremely important email. Because of this, learning how to be concise and persuasive is important in every form of communication, whether it is in a cover letter, a resume, an interview, or an email.
I've always had trouble eliminating the "fluff" from my emails. I guess it's habitual politeness. Then again, as the article leads me to believe, politeness and conciseness are not antonyms. It's striking to me how directness can be considered rude. Sure, there's a fine line between being direct and being a rude human being, but that line can often be difficult to walk. This is especially true in today's technological world; we have no idea how the recipient will read or tone or message. Will they get our elaborate jokes? Do they think I'm being too nosy or out of line? But the article is about grabbing attention. Once you've grabbed their attention then the recipient will be able to judge for themselves whether you're worth their time.
Eliminating fluff is something that I strive to do especially in an email setting. It's way too easy to go on and on talking about your cause. Concise emails are great because it lays it all on the line. One thing that really works for me is if you have a lot of questions is to number them in a list. Obviously, this doesn't work for every situation and it wouldn't work in the example given in the article, but for a sense of good communication this works very well. That way, you can get all of your questions answered. However, one thing to remember is that while concise and catchy emails are great, you don't want to come off as curt and passive aggressive, which is accidentally easy to do when your emails are very short.
So if this is what you do with colleagues, what do you do when you are emailing someone that you don't know, like when you are looking for a job? I mean, the colleagues already know who you are (mostly), but anyone else will be like "Who the Hell is emailing me this directly without even introducing themselves? How rude!" If an email comes to me and I don't know the email address, I look at the first few lines to see who sent me an email and why it would be relevant to my life. If the first thing it says is "I want to help you solve X. Can we meet?" I wouldn't meet up with them. I'm not goning to meet up with some stranger that just happens to know the answer to a problem I'm having. That's way too suspicious. And pre-setting a date seems rather forward too, like the person emailing things that you will of course accept their offer. Shouldn't you ask to meet first and then set a date/time when the recipient indicates their interest?
This article is super useful and timely for me. I recently took up the position as the in-studio director at CMU's radio station WRCT. That means it's my job to email bands we want to come to the station then email producers to come produce the shows. While the band's booking managers a great at reading emails and responding, people in our own station are notoriously bad at doing so. I'm sure a huge part of the problem is that station directors get so many emails to pick through that mine get lost in the crowd. I am CERTAINLY going to use this technique, and hopefully I will soon establish myself in the inbox of our production director!
The content of this article is very important. Now that we are usually left to communicate less and less by phone and letters and instead emails it certainly is an art worth conquering. I agree with previous comments about wanting to create a polite climate and establish a rapport with the person you're contacting but I can certainly appreciate the effectiveness of a concise email that clearly communicates a message. In a way, I think a short message can almost show a consideration for the person's time and for this it may cover both the need for politeness and communication. I certainly will more blatantly ask myself "is this really necessary" when emails I write start getting lengthy.
Also, I believe that because emails cut out non-verbal behavior, which can make up more than half of communication, we feel the need to say more to clarify our words.
Screw fluff. I agree with this article wholeheartedly. People put too much "extra" in things that they write, especially messages or important notices. They feel as if it will help them get a point across or make things prettier. It actually makes it much harder for the person reading the e-mail to find out what the hell you're talking about. When a potential employer or boss has to read hundreds of e-mails each day, they don't want to sit there looking at your e-mail trying to figure out what you are saying. It's important to be concise and to the point when trying to get your message across.
There is to be a fine line in writing people as to what is formal and informal. Should there not be any fluff in an email? I agree with being concise and to the point but had you never met the person you are emailing shouldn't you introduce yourself and the purpose you are writing them. I can see how a concise first sentence can be useful and proper but not really a 2 sentence email to a stranger. That seems more like a text message. Also, I highly doubt chief executives write so informally to another company they aren't familiar with. It seems like too forceful a way to introduce an opportunity.
I think this is a great article. I constantly struggle with eliminating fluff from my email. Personally, I find that emails which are straight forward and get right to the point seem way to informal. At the same time why does an email have to be formal. Do we live in the 1920's? Life is too short and way too stressful to worry about things like making your email sound super formal. Maybe the reason many people write this way is because all the years of high school English have trained young people to include evidence and support in your writing. I say its all a load of complete bullshit. I'm glad I read this article because I almost feel as if I have been given permission to write straight forward quick emails. I think its important that people learn to generate clear, concise, and polite emails.
I'm definitely guilty of writing some less than efficient emails, and I think optimizing our email messages are something we can all work on (in content and in audience). That being said,
a short and to the point email can also come off as aggressive if read in the wrong voice. Often times I add the "fluff" to an email just help ensure that it doesn't read angry.
This is the third Green Page article regarding emails. The first two were about:
Subject Lines - Brief and to the point.
Audience - Don't copy more people than you have to.
If our email culture and protocol could start working on those two, maybe we could then look at shortening up and optimizing the messages to make them more actionable.
I'm terrible at being concise. I'm frequently guilty of writing in the same manner that I speak, which, coincidentally, is also pretty close to how I think. I also can fall into the trap of thinking that concise and curt are the same, which isn't true. While I don't necessarily think that many people hiring interns are looking for quite so concise an email structure, I'll try and start implementing the structure in the article and adapting it to not sound quite so brusque, which isn't a good thing for the 21 year old intern applicant to sound like.
I feel like we all fall prey to the idea that we have to draw people in to our emails. It is like there is this constant push to make your email be the most interesting one this person reads all day, even if the message you have for them isn't interesting at all. I think that as much as we want to engage a reader in our emails, it just comes off as inefficient in most settings. Personally I think it is polite to give a greeting and closing statement to an email, but outside of that I try to be as concise as possible.
I think this article is good for certain situations but would be the wrong advice for others. This type of blunt, to the point email can be very effective in answering simple questions or scheduling meetings, but making business contacts or discussing things with people could probably use a friendlier format, or what this author would call "fluff". I originally read this in hopes of getting some advice for sending emails to future employers or for networking contacts, but i was disappointed in the kind of one sided view that this author has.
I think that the reason that most people still have "fluff" in their emails is because they're worried about coming off as rude by being more concise and to-the-point. Another reason is that people don't focus enough on their reader when writing. You always need to keep in mind what it is that your reader wants to know about, and what could interest them. Anything else is superfluous and selfish.
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