Optimise Your Email:
5 Ultra Simple Steps To Turbocharge Your Messages in 2019

Get them read, get people to take action

With a mountain of email to wade through each day, most people are fairly adept at skimming through and ignoring anything that’s uninteresting. The trouble is, it works the other way too. The emails we send must compete for attention as well. What to do.

Well according to studies the average person receives 122 emails per day and sends out 34. Of course, for many of us those numbers are much higher. Surely it makes sense to try and optimise our emails so that more get read and acted upon?

Here are some great tips to help you do just that:

1) Stop writing long emails

Long emails don’t get read. Well, that’s not completely true but they are actually much less likely to be. The optimum amount of words then?. Glad you asked, according to a study of 40 million emails by Boomerang, the ideal amount is between 50 and 125 words. That equates to 3-6 average length sentences.

2) Make them easier to read

‘Simplify, simplify’ as Thoreau said. Making your emails more concise AND simplifying the language will greatly increase your chances of them being read and understood.

Read through what you’ve written, imagine yourself in your reader’s shoes, will they understand it? Is it too bloated?

Writing in English that is easy to understand is actually a smart way to get better engagement. Don’t over complicate what you write, always remember people read email quickly, often skimming over areas.

3) Check your grammar and spelling

What?…but I left school years ago. Luckily there’s a great app that’ll be like having your favourite English teacher perched on your shoulder. It’s called Grammarly, add it to your browser and it will check everything you write and offer suggestions to improve spelling and grammar. The free version works really well so you don’t even need to pay for it. It’ll keep your spelling and grammar on track, plus make you look more professional.

4) Ask at least one question

If you are communicating with customers and want a response, especially if you are selling, ask at least one question. Studies show that asking 1-3 questions in an email is 50% more likely to get a response. Extra tip: End your message with a question. If the last thing the reader sees is a question, they are much more likely to answer it.

5) Keep subject lines short

Sub 50 characters is great. According to a study conducted by Return Path, open rates were 12.5% higher for subject lines with less than 49 characters, and click-through rates were 75% higher as well.

This is the type of thinking that we employ with our clients. If this is the level of detail that you’re looking for, take a look at our services page to see more of what we offer.