9 Secrets to Send Better Emails
Sending emails can be scary!
No one ever really talks about the level of anxiety that comes with sending an email you know lots of people (or even one person if we’re being honest) will see. I remember it would take me ten minutes to reread every email obsessively before I sent it off. Even if the email was just a one-sentence reply (yikes)
Over the years I’ve had to get over that in a hurry. In this day and age, you cannot escape emailing EVERYONE, even my little sister in the 5th grade is emailing now. Crazy right?
Because email has become so commonplace over the past few years many of us have had to figure it out on our own. Where was that email communication 101 when you need it?
And that why sending emails can be so scary because most of us were never taught how to do so we kinda just have learned as we go.
That was me.
But now that I’ve had to send emails to all types of people from company CEOs to my great aunt, I’ve come up with the absolute most important tips you need to craft a perfect email every single time.
Don't write in big block paragraphs
This is the most important part of email communication in my opinion. I can tell immediately if someone is new to sending professional emails if they write in big never-ending paragraphs.
It’s an innocent mistake but think about if you were writing a professional letter, say something like a cover letter. You wouldn’t send it in within one big paragraph and hitch a salutation at the end, would you? That would make it impossible to read and since most people read emails on their phones that would make it near impossible to get through.
In almost all digital writing you need to make it skimmable.
Let’s be real, most people won’t read through the whole thing but people like to get the gist, and then if it captures their attention they go back to read the rest.
So make sure you separate your thoughts and make sure you're separating different thoughts, ideas, and questions. To make it easier you can use bullet points, bold text to create visual breaks. Make use of the formatting options that Gmail offers! They are at the bottom of every email you try to send.
P.S: If you can find your formatting options, The “A” option beside send will give you all the text formatting tools like bold, italic, underline etc.
Tailor your intro to the person you're talking to
Not this is THE MOST important part of sending emails people will want to actually open.
The issue with most of us is that after sending tons of emails it starts to become second nature. No matter who you’re talking to you’re saying the same things you probably aren’t even aware of what the person you’re emailing really wants from you.
This goes from young professionals trying to send cold pitches or just emailing someone from your class. Everyone has different needs and you have to talk to that person in a way that addresses what they want.
An example of this is to say I was your coworker and you need a video from me so that you can finish a part of your project. You’re not gonna send.
Example 1.
Hi Janice,
I wanted to check in to ask about our Williams project. I really need it by Monday or I’ll miss the deadline. Will it be ready by then?
Thanks,
Wanda
That message is very abrupt it only focuses on you and your goals to get the project in on time. Most people won’t react to your need, you need to also offer empathy and see what might motivate them to fulfill your request.
Example 2
Hi Janice,
Thank you for volunteering to edit the raw footage for the Williams project. Since the deadline is fast approaching I wanted to reach out to ask if there’s anything I could do on my end to help or if you may need more time? I would love to know how its been coming along and how we can collaborate to make sure we both love the final product!
Thanks,
Wanda
This example is much more thoughtful and it makes it clear that you would like the project to be finished on time but also you’re willing to help because it’s important to you get a great final product. Your offering your help as an incentive to work fast and you’re taking into consideration that the person might need time or extra help which is important.
Skip to the chase! No long intro
Nothing is more annoying than going to read an email and having to wade through a paragraph of pleasantries before you get to what the person is actually asking.
It’s not polite it’s actually a pain in the ass.
Being overly excited and polite in email can fall flat. It’s a natural inclination because its harder to create a friendly tone in such a formal way but you have to squelch the urge to ask how the person is doing in six different ways.
The way to figure this out is generally if its the first time you’re emailing someone and you’re going to have an ongoing relationship with this person then you might want to briefly let the person know that you hope they're doing okay. Say it once and then remember the person’s time is valuable, so then you can get into why you’re emailing them in the first place.
If the person is someone you need to send maybe one email to and it isn’t going to be a continuous communication its okay leave the pleasantries for the sign-off.
In this case, you really just want to be polite but if you’re not trying to build a relationship with that person and the persons not trying to build a working relationship with you then succinctness will be your best friend.
A friendly sign off will be all the buffer you need to ensure that your email is still read in a friendly tone.
Speaking of sign off...
Use a signature sign off
A signature sign off is like the top hat on a well-dressed email it really gives you an extra air of authority or credentials. And anyone can have one!
You don’t have to be a big shot CEO to have an awesome signature sign off. It’s a simple feature in Gmail.
In your signature email, you’ll want to include your most relevant titles, the organization you’re apart of or any other relevant information that can give people a good sense of who you are and answer some of those questions that can arise when you’re emailing someone like what to refer to you as.
Here is how you should structure your signature sign off:
Your Name
Your Company, Position
Your contact information (optional)
Quote or Brand slogan (optional)
Also, Gmail is amazing because you can have different signature sign-offs that you can use for different reasons so you can tailor sign off to who you’re talking to and what you’d like them to know about you.
All you need is to go into your Gmail setting and write the different versions that you’d like to use.
Be specific
In your email, you’ll want to always address two questions. Most emails will yap on and on but never address the question the person who is getting the email really wants to be answered.
In this culture of “selling” to people, authenticity and succinctness can be your best friend!
When you send an email you really need to answer these two questions:
Who are you?
Why action do you want the person to take?
Now, these questions might seem fairly simple but often times people are afraid to answer them because when you send an email you tempted to think oh I should make it about them as if this thing is something they should want to do.
Well people aren’t easily fooled and trying to act like a request is doing someone else a favor is just slimy.
Let the person know what action you want them to take after the email and then let them know what the incentive is to carrying out the action.
So if you’re emailing a coworker or peer let them know that you would like them to finish their part of the work so that you can finish it and submit which in turn can give them a piece of mind over the project.
In any given circumstance when you’re emailing you have to know what are you asking and what is the incentive that you are presenting to making carrying out that action worthwhile.
And most times it doesn’t have to be anything big, think about when you get a promotional email from a company you know right off the bat that they're trying to sell you something but they don’t come in and say buy this thing from me because it would be great for you but they say “hey I know we’re asking you to buy this thing but in return well make the item less expensive as an incentive to purchase the item”
This request and incentive model happens all the time over email and you need to make sure you’re using it if you have any hope at actually sending emails that not only do people want to open but also want to take action on.
Make your subject relevant
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve got an email with a subject that was the least important part of the email. It’s crazy how we can do this.
Most people are tempted to use a subject title as the last or most prominent thing they remember when they wrote the email but that is wrong.
You really need to be thinking of a subject line like an article headline. If the email were to get lost in the person’s email what would they search to find it? Whatever that answer is that is your headline.
Think of the major keyword in your email and use that. Long email titles are big no-no unless it’s necessary for some outside reason. You’ll want to keep your titles around 5 words or less.
If you have a hard time picking email titles then read through your email a few times and see what topic comes up the most and narrow it down to point that’s tied to action so even if you have three questions in that email. Make the email “Lawson Project Questions” instead of listing all of the different subtopics in the email.
If you haven’t caught on by now one of the most important things to understand about professional emailing is understanding what and why you’re sending an email because you can’t get the answers and actions you want if your email is all over the place.
ALWAYS use an editing software on your emails
I’m sure we’ve all be here at some point. You write an amazing email and when you finally press send you to realize a glaring typo that sticks out like a sore thumb. That one typo can make your entire email look rushed and poorly constructed.
It happens to the best of us. The best way I’ve found to minimize this is to use grammar software like Grammarly that catches not only spelling mistakes but grammar as well. Free extensions like this will help make sure that double-checking your email is a breeze and once Grammarly has picked up all the little mistakes that you’ve missed you’ll be able to give it a final run through and make sure your email is ready to press send.
Name your attachments appropriately
This something that can be easily overlooked but it’s so important! and it can really come back to bite you in the ass. Having random files on your computer with different variations of the name is common for most people but the mistake that made is not realizing that when you send a document or attachment its sent with the name of the file.
So if you have a bunch of different resumes for different companies you might wanna make a copy of that file and name it appropriately so that the new job you’re applying to doesn’t realize you’re sending the same thing to everyone. Its a really bad look.
So make sure if you have something to send especially if its something that meant to be sent to a lot of people that you create copies and rename your copies appropriately.
Make your documents relevant and very clear about what’s inside. Never send someone an attachment that’s just file2003. Everything can be renamed so you really have no excuse.
Utilize MORE gmails features
I wanted to end with this because this is a mistake we make in our daily emailing. A lot of us simply don’t take the time to poke around our email to see what features Gmail has to actually make it easier for you.
I’ve seen friends copy and paste their email into google docs so that they can format it just because they don’t know that Gmail has a formatting option.
Its a totaling innocent mistake but as I said most of us weren’t given an emailing 101 course so we had to figure it out on our own, so you may not know all the amazing features you could be using that could be making your emails look amazing and professional straight out the gates.
Here are the top 5 of my most used Gmail features
Formatting (bold, italics etc)
Scheduling emails
Signature Sign off
Undo
Categories tab