7 Top Tips for Making Sure Your Emails are (Really) Read

Have you ever noticed that people don’t read? Properly I mean. Or if they do read, they don’t really absorb, and even if they absorb what they’ve read, they don’t seem to have understood anything. And even if they’ve read, and absorbed, and completely understood, for some reason they still don’t act according to your wishes (or your extremely detailed instructions). Take emails – we write them constantly yet so often they do not have the desired effect. Either people don’t reply, or they reply with the wrong (or irrelevant) response, or the wrong person replies. So what can you do about it? Here are my 7 top tips for making sure every email you write works for you – not against you. 1. Keep it short. Try to include just one idea or instruction per email, especially if it’s urgent or needs a quick, considered response. (Conversely, if you need to put something in writing but don’t want anyone to notice it, bury it in an email about something else.) 2. Where possible, send it to just one person – group emails are more likely to be ignored unless it’s really clear who needs to do what, and by when. A mass email to all my colleagues gives me permission not to respond – someone else will take care of it. Try not to cc to all and sundry either. 3. Really work on crafting your opening line and your ending. What’s the issue? Why are you writing? Why do I need to read this and respond before I do anything else? Unless these things are clear to me, I’m unlikely to make your email my priority. 4. Watch for abruptness. Tone is really hard to nail in an email – think about how what you’re saying might be received by someone who can’t ‘hear’ your tone of voice. 5. Repeat yourself. Don’t worry about saying something a couple of times if that helps to clarify what it is you need the recipient to do. 6. Check it before you send it. Do the recipient the courtesy of at least a quick spell check. And look out for missing or incomplete words. Someone recently sent me a message which read, in part, ‘Content was great but I could read the text’ – obviously they meant they ‘couldn’t’ read the text – very different meanings. 7. If it’s an important email, especially one to a client, read it out loud before you send it. If you’ve confused yourself, no one else is gonna have a clue.