Email Mastery:
A Speak Strong Approach to Effective Emails

          

Buried Deep in an Email Abyss
The subject line was: "Flier Revisions". The message implied the revisions were attached. So where were they? I assumed she forgot to include them and told her I didn’t get them.

I was wrong. She responded that the revisions were in the body of the email. I scrolled down. Past her close, past her signature code including her name, credentials, books authored, phone, and address. Le-voila! There it was! Or was it? It looked like she hadn’t made any changes. So I told her I only had the original version.

I was wrong. She explained she had pasted the original document after her signature file and pasted the revisions after that. Okay, there they were. Two days later, I found them.

Sure, I should have looked over the entire email before concluding what I was looking for wasn’t there. I didn’t think of it, and I dare say most people would not have found the revisions either. I’m busy and you’re busy and the people you send emails to are busy. That’s why you need to use the four keys below to be sure your emails are effective and perfectly clear.

Four SpeakStrong Keys to Powerful Emails:
Subject Lines, Overview, Bullets, and Headers
If you want your emails to be effective, write them so your reader sees at a glance:

- what your email contains
- where things are located
- what actions you want them to take.

Use the subject line, overview, bullets, and headers to clearly direct their attention where you want it to go.

1. Use Your Subject Line to Get Results
The subject line serves many purposes, so use it skillfully. Here’s what people learn from the subject line:

- what the email is about
- what you want them to do as a result of the email
- whether or not they want to bother with your email.

For example: an effective subject line would be:

- Early registration for SpeakStrong Conference ends Friday. Enroll now.

An ineffective subject line would be:

- Conference update

The first subject line makes it clear how your email applies to them. The second subject line does not.

2. An Overview of the Power of an Overview
Even with a clear subject line, bullets, and headers, I still might not have found my colleague’s flier edits because they were buried at the end of her email. A quick email-overview would have helped me find the attachment immediately. Here’s what she could have said:

" I pasted the original text at the end of the email, followed by the text with the edits I made. "

If your email is long, provide an overview early in the email of what is in it and where.

3. Add Clarity with Bullets
Bullets in your emails add clarity because they:

- separate out your ideas from each other
- draw the attention to your most important points
- make it more likely you will get responses to every point that you make

If you have three points, use three bullets (or number to three). That way, as soon as your reader opens the email, she knows you have made three points and expect responses to three points. Without the bullets, your points blend together and chances are greater that you’ll get a response to one or two points rather than getting a response to all three.

4. Catchy Headers Aren’t Just for Marketers
You may think that writing catchy headlines is the domain of marketers – not you. Anyone who writes emails needs catchy headers to grab their readers’ interest. Provide an introduction to each of your points, which makes it easier for your reader to get involved and understand what they read. You are a marketer of sorts – you are marketing the points in your email, so create a catchy header to pull them in.

If the Four Keys Don’t Get Your Point Across, Nothing Will
I’m busy and you’re busy and so is everyone you email. The four keys get your point across to someone who might not have gotten it otherwise. Do yourself and your reader a favor. Use the four keys to write powerful emails that are perfectly clear.


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Meryl Runion and Speak Strong (SpeakStrong) provides Power Phrases (PowerPhrases) and other tools to help you improve communication skills at work and at home. You can read more about her at www.speakstrong.com.

Meryl is the author of six books on communication that have sold over a quarter million copies worldwide, including Speak Strong, PowerPhrases!, How to Use PowerPhrases, Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors, and How to Say It: Performance Reviews. You can reach her at 719-684-2633, or by email:

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