chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in Writing Email That Gets Answered

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Sandesh — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:21:26 -0000

Great post Chris......Could you please tell me what points should I write in email which I am planning to send to my supposed client....Who don't even know me...

Thank you,
sandesh@sansahrk.com
Sandesh Daddi,
http://www.sanshark.com

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

youtube downloader — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:20:38 -0000

Think about choosing to go out to eat: if the first message is, “what day is good for you?”, the second message is, “what type of food do you like?”, and the third message is, “should we invite Jay, even though he laughs a lot and makes it hard to concentrate?”, you’ll see my point. These three questions all have a certain level of decision making to them. The mail on which day (better solved by a phone call) is different from the mail on what type of food, and both are different than whether or not to invite Jay (also probably better solved by a phone call).

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Macy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:56:46 -0000

I have a question - what do you say about sending an e-mail to say thank you when someone has answered your e-mail. I get umpteen thank you e-mails when I have completed a task asked of me in an e-mail. We have 500 people in our building and if everyone sends thank yous to everything that gets answered, what will happen to the server?

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Rob Lewis — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:01:38 -0000

I think that sums it up pretty well Chris, and some of these are fantastic comments!! If only they would come up with an email summarizer to make the thousands of emails easier to go through. Four hundred plus emails a day gets soooo old............

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Jorge — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:46:11 -0000

Great post Chris. One thing that really helps me out a lot in going through email is an appropriate subject line that makes a call to action or describes the type of email quickly. For example, "please call regarding _____" or "FYI: _______" or "Introducing ______ by way of _____ ." Also, if you need to write me an email that is only a few words, put it all in the subject line and type EOM (end of message) at the end. That way I don't even have to open the email to read ten words.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Csalomonlee — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:11:18 -0000

Intersting topic Chris. From a corporate perspective, I occasionally add some of our RSS feeds in the signature as my emails go to customers and reporters. This way, they can subscribe if they are interested in receiving updates (releases, recent news coverage, and case studies). However, I have to be careful as this can seem like spamming.

What do you think about the inclusion of RSS feeds when appropriate?

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Roland Reinhart — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:26:01 -0000

Regarding emails, I start off with a sentence setting the tone of what action I need done. Then I explain the issue. To close, I restate the necessary action item.

As for my signature line, I like to use the following:
Name
Title
My Specialties
Email / Phone
Connect with me online [custom url]

That url displays a list of links to my profiles on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. and keeps my signature short and simple.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Karina Mikhli — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:10:22 -0000

Chris,

As everyone else has pointed out, this was a great article and very useful. I have occasionally had to write longer e-mails for business purposes, mainly to recap a meeting, but generally keep them short. And as someone who used to get hundreds of e-mails a day, many of which I was just cc'd on, relevant subjects are vital.

To answer your other question, as to how improve the state of your in-box, I have two suggestions:
1. Get to the bottom of your in-box daily,
2. and file, file, file.

I love folders and use them often, both for "follow-up" purposes and for record-keeping.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

paul merrill — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:07:35 -0000

Re: signatures:

I never add a link to my blog, as links in emails sometimes cause emails to into that client's spam filter.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Steve Ellwood — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:48:30 -0000

Have we thought about how we answer?
I love the site I found through lifehacker:
five sentences.

Maybe we should bear that in mind, too.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

elizabeth — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:43:28 -0000

How do you handle the problem that email is no longer 100% reliable? Having used several different companies now, with all of them, sometimes emails just disappear into the ether. (And they all say they've never heard of this problem or that there's no way to figure out what's going on.)
e

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Michelle / chepixie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:05:56 -0000

I try to keep all emails short and to the point and well organized. If there's more than one point to make then I use numbered lists. If I'm getting especially long emails in return, I explain how hampering this is to actually responding.

If someone wants to write a 2 page email asking me for something, that's fine, as long as they realize that my response isn't going to be as long. I want to exchange the information NEEDED and then get on with my day.

Great advice for email writers. I can see a couple of changes I can make myself to make things easier on people that I respond to or email. Thanks!

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Rebecca Laffar-Smith — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:23:41 -0000

Fantastic post, Chris! Great pointers.

I'd also love to add, Don't Forward Junk! I have a couple of people on my list I've considered blocking because despite a polite reminder from time to time they still keep sending me those viral soppy mails. Now days I've taken to foldering EVERYTHING by those people and get around to it, usually deleting without even reading a bunch of their stuff, when I'm ready.

@Erika: You mentioned deleting parts of a threaded conversation with Gmail? How do you do that? I'd love to clean up some of the ramble amongst my gmail messages but I haven't figured out how to break messages up so I can remove one of the thread and not the entire thing.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Richard Dale-Mesaros — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:09:28 -0000

Golly heck, lots of comments....

I see mentions of being respectful and not rude etc with email. I'm sure many folks tend to use email to send a thank you note, but I still firmly believe that a hand-written, well crafted thank you on a card that has a personal image on the front (with perhaps some smiley faces or shiny gold starts sprinkled inside), will BLOW SOMEONE"S SOCKS OFF in comparison to an email. It's worth the effort.

Great post, Chris - see you at PODCAMP 3...

Yours with boundless enthusiasm,

Richard :)
Chief Deal Weaver
www.BlackWidowNetwork.com

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

jacobmorgan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:00:36 -0000

great post chris, im sure many of use have been guilty of a few of those things. i myself have definitely used "quick question" before i launch into my diatribe :) by the way did you know you have a tiny smiley face on the bottom of your page?

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Kyle — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:26:38 -0000

I agree with some of the early comments that subject lines are key. I work at a large-ish company, so most of my e-mail is internal, and I'm surprised by the number of messages I get with no subject. Makes searches months later more fun.

Mike Davidson came up with a good M lo-fi solution; treat e-mail responses like text message and limit them to five sentences.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

David Mullen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:23:48 -0000

Great tips to think about. Here's another I'd add:

If one MUST include a few paragraphs to supply context around the question, don't put the question at the very end. Lead with the question up front and then supply context. The recipient may know more about the situation than you realize and not need to read through paragraphs before finally getting to what it is you need to ask. It's another way to get a quicker response.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Lacy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:06:13 -0000

I like your point about leaving your telephone number at the end of an email. The other day I struggled to find a telephone number that I needed. Instead of having it at the bottom of every email within our correspondence as part of their signature, they only included it in one email.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Paul Dettman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:10:39 -0000

400 emails a day that require a response? Man, such are the tribulations of someone in the public eye. I wonder how many emails Bono gets! Have you tried Xobni yet, it may help your day along but it doesn't yet do automated replies.

My strategy, with something like 100 emails a day, is just sit on the ones I don't want to answer. If they were that important, someone will call or resend. I spend time banging on about how we are post-email now (i.e. like post-modern not post/mail) and that all my priority contact comes from friends in my personal email, usually as messages from facebook or twitter. So I know that my work email is likely to be low priority - sorry, boss...

I never send an email if I can avoid it, based on the annoyance level I have in replying to my own inbox. And who are these people who think they can send a 20 MB attachment? Per-lease!

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Chris — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:36:55 -0000

Chris,

Thanks for a great post. Our project management team has been reading through the book "SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home," which has actually been very helpful in stimulating discussion about how to improve email efficiency, readability, effectiveness, etc. While a good amount of it seems like common sense, some of their points were really refreshing. I reviewed 5 particular ones here: http://www.newfangled.com/5....

- Chris

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Brent P. Newhall — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:17:19 -0000

Any email over three paragraphs is suspicious to me now.

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Dawn — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:08:07 -0000

Great tips... esp. the part about sigs in e-mails (and on forums). I have three links in my regular sig right now and I'm afraid it's overkill (in addition to my title: Freelance Writer/Editor and my cell number).

They are all projects I want to promote, and only one is mine... so maybe I should rotate?

Good food for thought, Chris, as always.
Dawn

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Maria — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:03:43 -0000

Excellent article. I think that if everyone followed your advice, I wouldn't have my current In-Box 300+ situation.

While one decision per message may work with people you know very well, I feel that approach may make me a nuisance to people I'm just starting to work with. Which would they rather get from me: five short messages, each with a question or one medium-length message with five short questions? Not everyone uses e-mail the same way; I like to limit e-mail communication with new contacts until I get a feel for how they work with e-mail.

I'm also a strong believer in changing subject lines and deleting previous message quotes within a message. The correct subject line makes it clear what the message is about. The removal of all but the last one or two quote levels keeps the message short and clean.

Oh, how I wish people who forwarded mail would cut out the unnecessary garbage!

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Chris Christensen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:44:53 -0000

One decision per email sounds like a great idea but sometimes I need 4 decisions. In that case I like to:

1) Make numbered lists
2) Be clear who I expect to handle each follow on steps if there is more than one person on the email

e.g. 3) Chris - did you hear this week's Amateur Traveler

;-)

Re: Writing Email That Gets Answered

Phil Baumann — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:25:11 -0000

I just emailed you using your tips (tee hee).

Simplicity of value. It should be built right into Gmail. (Google algorithms could do that, couldn't they?)