Tag Archives: Email Writing

Jul22

Stop Drowning in Your Inbox: Email like a PRO

Posted on by
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

Posted on by
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