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4 Awesome Tips for Getting Your Email Through the Clutter

By Jill Kurtz
Online Career Tips Editor

4 Awesome Tips for Getting Your Email Through the ClutterWe all delete emails before reading nothing more than the subject line. While we all do this without guilt as recipients, none of us want to accept that this may happen to us as senders. Our messages are great – a must read!

Your emails may not be read and, worse, may actually be irritating the very audience you want to reach. Here are some ideas to mix things up a bit and maximize the chances that your email will be opened and read.

Have a Purpose

Every message should have a purpose. No one needs you to add  to their inbox clutter just to say hello. Make the purpose clear in the subject line and in the first few lines of the message. If the recipient can’t immediately tell why it is important to spend time with your message, he or she will move on.

Be Fresh

If you send regular messages to a contact list, freshen it up regularly. Use a different formula for the subject line coupled with regular changes in format and content. Keep your strategy and purpose consistent, but vary your implementation. Give your email recipients something fresh to look at and read.

Minimize Messages

Less is often more in communication. You may actually get more impact with fewer messages. If your recipient knows that you will send multiple messages with the same content, reading any individual message becomes less important.

If you are sending to a list and your email program allows, it’s great to offer control over frequency to your subscribers. It’s better to send fewer messages than to lose a frustrated subscriber altogether.

Get Intel

The reality is everyone will not read every message you send. Do your best to understand why.

When you talk to someone and get the sense that they did not read your message, ask some probing questions. Figure out why – Was it too long? Do they prefer a call? Was your message unclear?

When you are with groups of people that you want to reach in an ongoing way by email, ask about their interests and preferences. No one minds being asked what interests them; but irrelevant, too-frequent emails are annoying.

Responses to your message can also give you valuable insight into making your next email even better. If you asked multiple questions and only one was answered, you know to trim your content. If your call to action was missed, look at the position in the message and make it more prominent.

These strategies can help you find just the right balance in your messaging and increase the likelihood that you engage rather than annoy your email recipients.

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