Tip: Write Your E-mail Intros Like a Tweet
Let’s be honest: we all get way too much email. In professional communication, it’s all too common to send an email only to find that days later, the recipient didn’t take the time to read it or – worse – deleted it.
Before you blame them, ask yourself: did I make it easy for them to delete my email? The decision about what to do with your message may happen much quicker than you think.
Most email systems preview message content for the first 50-100 characters of the email. So, as Steve Rubel suggests, perhaps you should try writing the first sentence of your email like a tweet. Skip the introductory small talk and get right to the point. Set your hook within 75 characters and you’ll have a far better chance of the reader giving your email the attention it deserves.
75 characters isn’t a lot, so this takes some practice. I suggest heading over to a site like this that will give you a character count as you write your hook. Once you’ve got it pared down to a reasonable size, tab back to your email client and paste in what you’ve written.
It’s the attention economy these days. Instead of trying to fight it, learn to play better within its rules.
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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management), Workday and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog. If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website. If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.
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