As a copywriter, I spend a lot of time on email, trying to get my point across as succinctly and persuasively as possible.
Let me tell ya, email is tough.
In my August 7 post, I talked about not emailing when you’re angry, because it always seems to come across to your reader, even when you think it doesn’t.
So, what are my other tips for writing better email messages? (You may not agree, and if you don’t, I would love to hear what you have to say.)
- Think before you write ‒ Under time pressure, when you’re confronted with a mound of email, you may feel you’ve got to fire off responses fast. My brother used to call email “wire(d) notes,” which I love, because, it perfectly captures that feeling of frantic-ness. Still, it’s worth it—particularly if the topic is delicate—to think about what you want to say. Review the points you want to make. Try structuring your message around beginning, middle, and end for greater coherence.
- Refine ‒ You don’t need to spend hours polishing your message. But if you’re expressing ideas or emotions that are difficult to nuance, make sure you give your writing an extra look. And if you’re not sure how something’s coming across, tell your reader. It can be disarming—and effective—to read something like, “John, this is a difficult topic for me, but…”
- Be brief ‒ Everyone groans—and probably tunes out—when they get a business letter that’s longer than three paragraphs. The same is true for email. Be concise. Remove all that extra phraseology, all the little filler phrases such as “in order to.” (As my wonderful former sales manager Bruce Cartier used to say, “Honey, you just got to boil the fat out of it.”)
Oh, one last thing. Give some thought to your subject line. More about that later…
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