Tag Archives: Email

Nov25

What Apps Can I Use to Help Me Manage My Email?

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What Apps Can I Use to Help Me Manage My Email?

It’s Monday and you check your inbox. It looks like the digital marketers have been busy sending you all sorts of emails over the weekend. They’re probably gearing up for the holidays and they’re flooding your inbox with holiday clickbait. The problem is, you don’t have time to read through all of your new messages to decide which ones to address and which ones are just a lot of vendor waffle.

If only you had tools that can automate sorting through your email. Oh wait, there are tools for that! The good news is that there are many tools you can use to manage and automate your emails. You just have to try them out and see for yourself which one will work best for you. Here are 3 of the amazing email management tools that can help you wrangle that out-of-control inbox.

Boomerang:
Boomerang is a tool that lets you control when you send and receive a message. Sure there are email schedulers built into almost every email app, where you can compose a message now and then schedule it to be sent at a later time or date. What’s cool about Boomerang is that it has a handy calendar picker that lets you pick a time and date to send your reply. It is also an intuitive app that understands texts like “next Wednesday” and Boomerang can automatically take it from there. It also has nifty reminders for important messages and for following up on email.

Mixmax:
Mixmax is great for small to medium businesses. It has automation for tasks that help build your customer database. You can set it up to send customers a LinkedIn Connection request and a follow-up email with more information on your company. Also, not to be creepy or anything, but wouldn’t you love to know when your email is opened – by who, at what time, and on what device? This is especially helpful if you’re in the marketing business and would love to know when most of your clients or customers are actually reading your updates. Like Boomerang, it also has reminders for follow up and can also recommend sending times. It comes with email and calendar templates and, as a huge plus for businesses, can easily integrate with Salesforce CRM.

SaneBox:
SaneBox AI identifies important messages, hides distractions, has Do Not Disturb, banishes annoying senders, reminds you to follow up. Your important emails stay in your inbox and distractions are moved to a SaneLater folder, which you can check and if you find an important email, move it to your inbox. Future messages from that sender will automatically stay in your inbox. You can create folders for other types of emails like “news” and SaneBox will automatically filter your email for items that fit your folder. You can use it for Gmail, Office 365, or iCloud.

Have you tried any of these tools to manage your email? Which one is your favorite? Share your experiences with us in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard!

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Jul22

Stop Drowning in Your Inbox: Email like a PRO

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Stop Drowning in Your Inbox: Email like a PRO

Of the dozens of emails you get on a daily basis, how many of them are relevant to you? Are they mostly newsletters? Are they emails intended for someone else but you were just copied in, FYI? Stop drowning in emails. The quality of the emails you receive is the quality of emails you send out. If you build a reputation for sending clear, concise and relevant emails, you will only get sent the same. If you don’t want to be bothered with pointless emails, make it a habit to send relevant emails and only include people who are stakeholders in the email you are about to send, don’t blindly copy in just anyone. Here are a few guidelines for emailing like a pro:

1.Keep the message short – only put in what is necessary but no shorter. Don’t cut words or information out just because you want to send a single sentence email. It’s best if the reader doesn’t have to scroll down to read the whole message and better if you can get the point across in 1 to 3 sentences.

Dear Kim,
Please prepare an RFQ template for the welcome kits that your team designed. I will take care of sending them out once I receive the template.
Regards,
Jane

2.Put the most important information at the top of the message. – In the military, they call this BLUF or Bottom Line Up Front. Useful for when you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.

Dear Joe,
Please focus on finishing the copy for this month’s newsletter and send to me for copy editing once ready.
Thanks,
Jill

3.If you are asking a question or favor, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message. – This is a must for emails with a lot of cc’s. To make sure there is no confusion, mention the name and ask the question. You can also use the @ system, it works the same way.

Hi Everyone,
Meeting is moved to 2:30PM.
@Sheila please come in 5 minutes early to set up your presentation deck.
@Tom Do you have all the copies ready?
Thanks,
Annie

Don’t send out weird, vague, and awkwardly formatted emails. Practice writing crisp and incisive emails and hopefully, you won’t get crappy ones in return.

Follow these three tips help you write clear emails. Make sure you keep your emails short and mention the gist at the beginning of your message, mention stakeholder names, and ensure that only those who need to be copied in are indeed copied in on the emails.

How about you? What are your pro email writing tips? Care to share them with us in the comments? Remember to stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Jul10

Never Write Vague Emails Again: 3 Email Writing Tips from the Military

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Never Write Vague Emails Again: 3 Email Writing Tips from the Military

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