Effective emails in the Age of Interruption

Part 2: Content is King (or Queen): 5 ways to write better email content — and slim down your inbox

Ping. An email lands in your inbox: “How much do your Class A Gold Widgets cost?”

You fire back a reply: “Thank you for your query. Our Class A Gold Widgets cost $19.99 each. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.”

You go back to writing a sales brochure for the new 5-Star Platinum Widget.

Ping. “What other kinds of widgets do you sell, and what do they cost?”

You again: “Thank you for your query. We also sell Bronze Widgets at $9.99 and Silver Widgets at $14.99. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.”

  

Ping.

Your teeth clench.

Emails go back and forth, asking and answering questions. Your inbox is busy all day, because it’s not just one person emailing you.

By six o’clock you’re frazzled, your inbox is still piling up, and the brochure is only half written.

You know there has to be a better way.

In the Age of Interruption, it keeps getting harder to find time to focus.

Former Microsoft executive Linda Stone labels the disease of our age as "continuous partial attention," never being fully absorbed or engaged in one thing. We’re so afraid of missing something that, in a way, we miss part of everything.

If we have fewer emails to deal with, we have more time to focus. Writing smarter content helps us get there.

Here are 5 ways you can write more effective emails. Along the way you’ll be:

•       reducing misunderstandings 
•       getting faster, more relevant responses
•       reducing the volume of emails you receive and send

1. Pre-empt questions

What if your first reply had gone something like this?

Thank you for your query. Our Class A Gold Widgets cost $19.99 each.

Our Bronze Widgets cost $9.99 and Silver Widgets cost $14.99.

For full information on all our Widgets, plus how to order, please visit www.WeAreWidgets.com/Widgets. The Frequently Asked Questions section should answer all your questions, but if you’re still unsure of anything, feel free to get back in touch.

You’ve anticipated questions and explained where your potential client can find out more. Chances are she’ll visit your website, check out the Widgets and order online if she likes what she sees.

2. Put your main message up front

Say in the first or second paragraph what you want your readers to do. If you don’t need a reply, make them happy by telling them so.

Busy people scan emails. If your key information is up front, they’ll know right away whether they can answer you now or need to wait for something else to happen first.

3. Don’t bury important information

When people scan, they tend to pay more attention to the beginning of an email message, but also to the first few words of a paragraph. Stick to one idea per paragraph.

If you’ve put a key point or a request into the middle of a paragraph halfway down the page, chances are your readers won’t even see it.

4. Don’t overload emails

Deal with separate issues in separate emails.

Keep your message short, focused, and to the point. Break up blocks of text into short paragraphs and leave spaces between them.

People tend to reply quickly to short, simple emails. If you stick to one issue, there’s also less chance that the person will forget to deliver part of what you want.

If for some reason you do have to deal with more than one issue in an email — for example, if you need three pieces of information for a project – start out by saying you need three things and what they are. Use bullet points. Then, if you need to expand on them, use subheads and short paragraphs to help the reader see which points relate to which issue.

5. Make subject lines informative

The subject line is like a headline, giving the reader a reason to open your email and read it.

Be specific and use meaningful words. “Budget meeting March 4th” is better than just “Meeting.” Meeting for lunch? To welcome a new client? To find out you’re fired?

Never leave the subject line blank — your message may get diverted into the spam folder. Even if it does get through and you file the reply, you’ll be hard pressed to find it a month later when you’re on the phone and scrambling to check a detail.  

Taking a few extra minutes now to write smarter email content will pay you dividends later. Try it and see.

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Next time: Effective emails in the Age of Interruption, Part 3

Managing emails to give yourself more time 

Effective emails in the Age of Interruption

Part 1: Why good etiquette saves time

5 tips to help you reduce the flood of emails

Are you drowning in emails? If that’s how it feels, you’re not imagining it.

The volume of emails we have to cope with – to open, read, decide how to handle, reply, forward, file or delete – is skyrocketing. New research shows a 300% increase in the number of new and unread email messages in our inboxes in only the past 4 years (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, 29 Nov 2010).

That’s a lot of reading, thinking and typing. It’s also a lot of time. I don’t know about you, but I can think of plenty of better things to do than the electronic version of swimming the breaststroke in quicksand.

“We have gone from the Iron Age to the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Age of Interruption,” says New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman.

If we’re not interrupting each other, we’re interrupting ourselves by checking messages or emails or news feeds.

The good news? By making a few easy changes, you can stem the rising tide of emails without annoying people. That’s a lot less drastic than deleting them all and claiming the dog ate your hard drive.

Good email etiquette is about respecting other people. It’s about being polite – of course – but it’s also about respecting other people's time. And it can actually reduce the number of emails you send and receive.

Try these 5 strategies and see what happens.

1. Is this email necessary?

Do you need an answer right away? Has the email you sent yesterday turned into a back-and-forth series of new thoughts and questions? Is the topic sensitive? Pick up the phone or walk down the hall and talk to the person. Taking a little time now will save both of you time later.

2. “Cc” is different from “To”

When your name is in the “To” line, the email is one you have to act on. When it's in the “Cc” line, the email should be just for your information. If you need responses from three people, put all three names in the “To” line. If you Cc someone and expect them to respond or otherwise act on your email, you may end up having to chase them for a response. 

3. To Cc or not to Cc (that is the question)

Too often, we Cc to cover our backsides, and not because the person to whom we’re copying an email really needs to see it. We may “copy up” to the recipient’s boss to coerce the recipient into complying. DO NOT DO THIS. It’s sleazy. It also gives the recipient permission to do the same thing to other people. Including you. Think before you Cc. 

4. Don’t be a spammer

You know who you are. You can’t resist sending everyone in the office photos of cute bunnies in magician costumes and jokes that are variations on “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.” STOP IT. Send these to your mother and your cousin in Red Deer if you must, but stop cluttering up your co-workers’ inboxes. If 10 people send a joke once a week, suddenly every person in the office has to deal with 500 extra emails a year.

5. Think before you “Reply All”

“Thanks!” “My shoe size for the bowling league is 9 narrow.” “Fine by me!” Emails may be legitimately circulated to bring everyone up to date on the new project or obtain some sort of answer from everyone. But do you really need to Reply All? Stop and think. Most times, it’s better to reply to the sender only. Your co-workers will thank you.

Just remember. Every time you practise bad email etiquette, you’re giving other people permission to do it, too. And they will.

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Next time: Effective emails in the Age of Interruption, Part 2

Content is King (or Queen): how the right content can mean fewer emails

Use shorter words and look smarter

Why simple writing makes you

anything but simple minded

Do your customers see you as smart or confused?

Your business uses words, one way or another. You probably have a website, brochures and business cards. Maybe a newsletter and some press releases.

Did you know the size of words you use can actually affect how smart your customers think you are?

People use big words because they think it makes them look smart. As it turns out, the opposite is true. Daniel Oppenheimer, a Princeton University psychology professor, wrote a paper on five studies that tested how readers perceive a writer’s intelligence. The studies showed that, when you write something in simple words and short sentences, the people who read it think you’re smarter than if you’ve written big words and long, involved sentences.

Imagine that.


As a language, English is salty and sublime, inventive and infuriating. It steals from everybody else and then looks at you, eyes wide and innocent, and says, What? What?

Who can resist a rogue like that?

Stealing has made English rich. You can call a spade a spade — or an excavation implement. Context is all. 

If music be the food of love, play on, says Shakespeare.

We are a provider of next-generation human capital development solutions, says a training company that should know better. What they mean is, they sell training software for your office staff and salespeople. At least, I think that’s what they mean.

That’s the trouble with jargon: just when you think you see what it means, it blows smoke in your face. Did the company you bought shares in last year lose millions this year? If they did, they likely won’t tell you that. They’ll say, We experienced a period of negative growth.

Jargon is the enemy of clear thought. It’s fuzzy, devious, and inflated. The next time you’re tempted to call your product next generation or cutting edge, give yourself a slap. If it’s new and does some cool new stuff, just talk about the cool new stuff it does.


Looking smart is easier than you think


In the weeks ahead, this blog will give you tips on clear business writing, links to helpful free resources, and a few quirky bits about language. Its aim is to get you thinking about what kind of writing your business puts out there for everyone to see. And about what kind of writing will make you look smarter in your customers’ eyes.

Here’s today’s tip. Use short words. Looking smart is easier than you think.