Email subject lines are often overlooked but have the potential to make or break your workplace communication and productivity… What’s the first thing people look at when deciding whether or not to open an email? The From name. And the second? The email subject line—and that makes the subject line key. This is something I emphasize when teaching email copywriting, but it is every bit as relevant to writing at work. While the email marketer needs compelling email subject lines to get a prospect to open an email so they’ll see the...
(Originally published November 2017) Do you wish writing didn’t take you so long? Or that you could dash off an email without having to think so hard about it, and labor over it? We spend so much time on business email writing, it’s no surprise it’s a pain point. And if it is a pain point for you, kudos to you for caring! Far too many emails are dashed off with little thought for how well they’re communicating what’s intended. Sadly, that leads to even more time spent writing and reading as we’re trying to understand each other, so...
What’s scarier than Halloween haunts? Sucky workplace writing! Halloween is here, but you know what’s really scary? The billions of dollars lost each year due to sucky workplace writing. How many billions? How scary can this really be? Oh, it’s terrifying, trust me: $400 billion. Every. Single. Year. If that number doesn’t scare you, it should. Picture 400 billion one-dollar bills piled up high and set on fire…a huge bonfire of money going up in smoke, leaving only a dusting of ashes behind. That’s $400 billion gone, just gone. Can...
Why should you care about effective business emails? Because they save time, both for you and for the people you email. How do they save time? Because you write fewer emails when you are better at it. When you’re a competent and considerate writer of emails, you cut down on the unnecessary back-and-forth email traffic and the clutter in your inbox. And your reward? You get back time. Better emails = better brand + time saved In my last post on business email writing, I talked about email’s effect on your personal brand at work, and...
Writing emails at work is something we do on automatic pilot but shouldn’t, because how you email matters. Would you show up for work in rumpled pajamas and bed hair? Would you slouch in your chair scrolling through your Instagram feed on your phone while in a one-on-one meeting with your boss? No and no, because you know your appearance and body language are a reflection of your professionalism (and brand) in the workplace. But do you realize the same is true of the emails you write? How you do email is part of your brand In a...
It’s a Friday afternoon as I write this, and the long work week is winding down. That means I’m reflecting on the past few days—and realizing that twice this week my time was wasted by bad business email writing. Twice this week I received unclear emails and I had to spend time trying to understand the instructions and timelines and attachments, write emails in reply to get clarification, and put tasks on hold as I waited for the answers. It all added up to about an hour of my time. You might think, “Well, an hour isn’t much time,...
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