In the early years of the internet, I was extremely guilty of writing poorly formatted emails in ridiculous fonts. They would start with some sort of apology like “sorry for the long email” or a meek request like “can I bother you for a minute” then proceed to write a long drawn out email. These emails would turn out to be a short story.

Thankfully my email writing skills have vastly improved over the years. Also, hurray to no longer using comic sans!

We all have to admit that there’s always room for improvement. In honing my email writing skills, I take stock from the military. I learned how to format emails from an article I read: “How to Write Email with Military Precision”. This has greatly helped me in writing concise messages, be it email, copy, or SMS messages. Surprisingly, the way the military write emails isn’t like the curt, one-word email messages Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is notorious for. Here’s how they do it:

Perfectly worded subject line:
They start where it matters, at the beginning. Right off the bat, they already have the purpose of the email on the subject line. This makes perfect sense, the recipient will know straight away what the email is for so nobody has to waste time weeding through words to find out what the purpose of the email is. This strategy also does away with writing a pointless “hello” in the subject line. Here are some examples of the keywords they use in the subject line:
● ACTION – Compulsory for the recipient to take some action
● SIGN – Requires the signature of the recipient
● INFO – For informational purposes only, and there is no response or action required
● DECISION – Requires a decision by the recipient
● REQUEST – Seeks permission or approval by the recipient
● COORD – Coordination by or with the recipient is needed

This cute little acronym called BLUF:
BLUF stands for Bottom Line Up Front which means the leading line (first few lines of your message) states the purpose of the email and the action required. Yesss! This saves everyone sooo much time. Imagine if everyone wrote emails this way.

Short and Sweet:
Time is a valuable resource and no one understands this better than the military. We can all agree that concise emails are better than long ones, so as much as possible, the military tries to fit all texts into one pane so that the reader won’t have to scroll or read through a lot of hullabaloos.
● Pro tip: they consistently use the active voice when sending emails.
○ Passive: A background brief of the project was submitted by the marketing team yesterday
○ Active: The marketing team submitted a project brief yesterday
■ The active voice sounds better and more concise, right?

How about you? What are your favorite email writing hacks for sending better emails? Share your tips with us in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard!

Written by Jaie O. The Help