Make Your Email Shine
How many emails do you receive each business day? You’re too busy to count. And why? In part, you don’t have anytime because you can’t tell which of those emails are important without reading each of them. No more!
Writing a good email is important but more than half of the battle is the subject line – if you win that battle, you’re likely to go on and win the war. But how? Start with these three guidelines offered by the fine folks at Cranking Widgets:
1. Use keywords
Emails come in four basic categories: questions, responses, information, and spam. Tell people which type your email is right in the subject line. For example:
- Bad subject line: Meeting today?
- Good subject line: Question: Are we still meeting at 2pm meeting today?
2. Describe the subject
Keyword categories are a start, but that falls apart if you don’t follow through with a good description. The category sets expectations about the response, the subject offers direction. For example:
Click over to the full posting for a bevy of details that dig far deeper than this summary and watch your email do more in less time.3. Never leave the subject blank.
- Bad subject line: Question: Meeting
- Good subject line: Question: Are we still meeting at 2pm meeting today?
This happens more than you might think, but even a bad subject line is better than NO subject line. Most email clients (both software clients such as Outlook and Web-based clients such as Gmail) have an option to alert you when you try to send an email without a subject line. That’s a check and balance worth having.
