Have you ever written an email to an employee, coworker, vendor, partner, boss or someone else only to have them not even respond?
Or maybe they responded, but didn’t answer your questions or questions?
It can drive a person nuts.
You think, “Did they even read what I wrote to them?”
A common first reaction, and I do it all the time, is to think about what the other person is doing wrong.
But I’m trying to learn how to focus on myself in situations like this (and in others, but we’ll stick with this for now).
I try to think about what I can do differently so that my message is received and understood and acted upon if that’s what’s required.
Here are some tips for getting people to read and understand your emails.
1. Make It About Them
In the subject line. In the introduction.
When it comes to life we spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves. It must be in our nature.
Or if we have a family we think about our close family first.
In either case, we’re thinking at an individual level. We’re looking at everything from the angle of what it means for us.
If you send an email and the subject line and introduction are about you the odds are good that the recipient won’t make it a high priority. They’re not sure why they should care.
There are a couple ways to do this.
One way would be to ask a question. Either in the subject or in the intro right away.
Can you help me with something?
I need your advice on a problem…
Another way would be to offer answer the “why?” right away. When we get emails we often wonder why.
Your subject line could be:
Next Steps for The Big Project
That’s a pretty important why and instantly makes the recipient pay attention and really read through everything.
2. Use Headings, Numbers
Nothing turns someone off to an email faster than not being able to scan it.
Think back to when you opened this blog post.
Did you scan ahead before diving into the introduction?
Most people do.
And it’s not just blog posts.
Homepages, emails, books, etc.
We almost always wonder what the full picture is before committing.
Headings and numbers are a great way to breakup content. A great way to make it scannable.
There’s no reason you can’t break up your emails. If it’s even a medium sized email with different ideas or points then definitely break it up a bit.
3. Format Like Texts
I’m thinking shorter sentences. Not necessarily acronyms, although you could, but shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs.
And also shorter emails and possibly a series of emails instead of long emails.
People have gotten really good at texting. We miss things once in awhile, but we pretty much comprehend things pretty quick.
The first thing that we learn about texting is not to send too many texts at once. If it gets too long the other person probably won’t read through it all or if they do they probably won’t remember it all.
The same with emails.
It takes discipline, but sometimes it’s better to break a big message down into multiple short messages. Ones where instead of asking 5 questions you send five emails with one question each.
I had a friend that just got back from a trip. I texted with him for a bit asking one question at a time. Waiting for a response. Following up. That seemed to work great vs. me just asking 10 questions in quick succession.
4. Bold, But Not Too Much
Something that works really well if you don’t overdo it is to use bold.
I like to bold final questions or the only question in an email.
Especially if there are more than 2 or 3 paragraphs or sections.
I like to end emails with questions. Kind of a next step or action item for the recipient.
But if they see 2-3+ sections they might just scan and never see the question at the end. They put aside the email thinking they will get to it later and then it gets lost.
So I’ll bold the question so they catch it when they do their initial scan.
Obviously if you bold too many things the bold won’t stand out as much.
So 1-2 bolded items per email is good.
5. Followup
Even if you create the perfect email and the person reads it and understands it they still might set it aside for a second.
And that could leave you wondering if they even got it or acted on it. And it could then fall into their abyss of busyness where they forget about it for the long-term.
But you can still focus on what you control.
You can followup with a quick email the next day to make sure the person received it and understood it.
I like to phrase these followups without any kind of blame or anything like that.
Just wanted to make sure you got my email. Some people have said my emails aren’t working lately.
That kind of puts the possible blame on you. Or something like this:
Did you get my email yesterday? Just wanted to see if I left anything out or if you had any questions?
I’ve found that 24 hours is a fair amount of time to wait.
Conclusion
Emails remain an important element of communication today. The tips above have helped me to make sure others read, understand and act on important emails. It’s a careful balance, but the more you focus on what you control while not blaming the other person the better things seem to work out.
