How To Email A Busy Person & Not Get Ignored

We receive a hell lot of promotional emails. Don’t we?

But do we ever bother to share it with a colleague, friend, or family member?

Do we even spare time to open and check it? No, we don’t.

Considering the reasons why this happens to us, I came to the conclusion that these promotional emails that we receive are forgettable in nature since they lack the appeal that the reader like you and me crave.

In the pool of hundreds of emails that we receive on a daily basis, we rarely consider the ones that make us smile, laugh or think.

So, how do we email a busy person? Or even how to get him respond the emails that you sent?

Today, every promotional or business email needs to be ‘memorable’ as how ‘memorable’ it is decides whether or not recipients will open or even share it with others.

Why Is This Important?

Contents

1 Why Is This Important?
2 Why Do You Need A Reply?
3 How To Get People To Read Your Emails?
4 What’s Your Take?

Being a marketer endows you the responsibility of establishing partnerships and building meaningful relationships with influencers.

The email marketing strategy that you form and follow will either encourage or discourage a person to hit the ‘reply’ button and answer you.

I strongly recommend you to resort to these tips to increase open rate of your formal emails or promotional emails. Getting email responses shall be the added advantage.

Why Do You Need A Reply?

Do you know, checking emails and answering to them is one of the tasks that successful people prioritize even when they are busy?

Apple CEO, Tim Cook told the world in an interview that he receives somewhere between 700 and 800 emails a day. And he reads a ‘majority of those.’

The former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt wrote in his book “How Google Works,”Most of the best — and busiest — people we know act quickly on their emails, not just to us or to a select few senders, but to everyone.”

Another one.

Hint Water founder and CEO Kara Goldin wakes up early to check email. She says she heads straight to her inbox at 5:30 a.m. because doing this gives her a clear understanding of what the next 12 hours are going to look like and what her priorities are once she gets to the office.”

Hence, it is absolutely normal to expect a reply from a commoner.

You got to stick to the tricks and the most suited email writing format in order to minimize the chances of getting filtered out while Inbox allows the user to prioritize emails as per interests.

Be noted that busy people have a hard time managing email. If you don’t prove the relevance of your email in life (personal or professional), you are less likely to get a response from them.

The first and foremost thing to do is – having a clear vision of email goal. Why are you sending the email? What is the reason? Find answers to these questions beforehand.

How To Get People To Read Your Emails?

No reply from receiver’s end clearly implies disinterest. But nobody said you can’t build interest.

They say ‘writing an email is a skill’. And learning it matters. Understanding how to properly email people is a skill that sets you apart from others.

You might not be the email ninja but you can still get it right.

Research about Your Receiver

It will be of a great benefit to your business if you take time to research who your recipient is, what does he care about, any organizations or interests you have in common, and what he does for fun outside of work. You got to learn all about him.

Learn how and what do they share or respond on various social channels and blogs too. This insight can help you write an email that is meaningful and worthy of their precious time.

Making assumptions about the person you are emailing is not a healthy practice. It is just like shooting an arrow in the dark.

Knowing them beforehand will enlighten you how to write email precisely for them. This activity increases the chances of your email getting opened. Isn’t it what you desire at first place?

Ask a Question About Them

People love to talk about themselves. Especially when they are powerful and famous. They have a lot to share!

Why not strike the nerve that can get them talking? Confused?

Asking a personal question in your email tempts the person to share something about themselves with you. Hence, you get a valuable response that you can use to not just learn about the person but also leverage the knowledge in it to your own benefit.

Personalization is the need of the hour.

Everybody is sending out personalized emails to extract maximum engagement from their campaigns or emails. That’s when researching about your audience, knowing their network and their names come into play.

Use an Urgent Subject Line

Busy bees prioritize emails as per the importance. And how do they do that? They quickly glance at the subject line and make a call – to either read it or leave it.

Hence, you realize how important a subject line is in email marketing.

During professional email writing or formal email writing, you need to take care of certain pointers.

Craft catchy and urgent subject lines
Be clear and concise in email body
Personalize content
Raise curiosity
Use persuasive style of writing

You don’t want your email to remain unseen or unanswered for many days, do you?

Try using words like ‘IMPORTANT’ or ‘URGENT’ in your subject line to grab attention of the recipient.

Causing urgency with your subject line not only benefits you, it also eases the pain of prioritizing at receiver’s end.

Be cautious while using urgent subject lines. You don’t want to sound silly if your content isn’t important as the subject line suggests.

Save these for real important announcements or discussions.

Keep It Short and Simple

Nobody wants to read paragraphs that go on and on in an email.

Haven’t you heard that the perfect email is short, simple, and not too emotional?

Clear emails always have a clear purpose.

Use the ‘One Thing’ Rule while writing an email for busy people. Since the communication is not face-to-face, it is suggested to raise one agenda at a time. You are never certain that your very agenda will be addressed or not.

The less you include in your emails, the better it is.

When you write an email, you need to ask yourself after every sentence – is this line important to include? Always remember, you are sharing information for the sake of receiver’s benefit and not yours, at least you need to sound like that in your email.

It’s important that your receiver connects with the subject of the email.

So, cut down the words. Get to the point quickly. Keep it simple.

When you do this – your email’s response rate is sure to skyrocket.

There are several business email formats that you can refer for crafting a perfect email for your customer or client.

Little email writing tips to get you going:

Limit yourself to five sentences
Stick to a standard structure
Use active voice
Use exclamation points but not too many
Write a sweet send-off
Proofread your email
Write as you speak – informal or casual

6 basic elements of a perfect email:

The straightforward subject
The brief + personal greeting
The genuine context
The desired goal
The persuasive pitch
The close (signature)

Here is an ideal formal email example to have a look at:

Consistently Issue Reminders

Poking busy people with reminders can get annoying at times but this is the last thing you could do to get a response from busy people.

The urge to get the response from the receiver will either make him dig out your previous emails or respond to your email.

It’s all about persistence. Constantly seeking their attention always works in one or the other aforementioned way.

Timing matters big time

True it is!

One of the most important aspects of email marketing is hitting those peak email checking times. Sending out the emails at the perfect time can have a huge impact on your campaign’s effectiveness.

If you get this right, your half of the problem is solved.

Ensuring your email at the top of the inbox of your prospects increases the chances of opening. Only when it is on top, it will be attended.

Do you want to know the best time to send your email marketing campaigns? Read on.

Realize that every email list consists of a different set of people with different habits and different interests. Therefore, your best send time may or may not be the same for each and every member of the email list.

Also, it will not collide with any other marketer’s best time as every business has a unique set of customers who perceive and act differently.

Weekdays or Weekends?

According to various studies so far, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are everybody’s favorites.

Fewer promotional emails are sent on the weekends. Since weekends tend to have low open rates, most of the marketers avoid sending promotional emails on Saturdays or Sundays.

Day or Night?

Sending out emails between 8 and 10 am is considered sacred in the marketing world. According to a recent email marketing benchmark study across all industries, the recipients are surprisingly active late at night.

These night recipients also had the highest click-through rates for all times of the day.

Additionally, more than 54 percent of emails are now opened on a mobile device.

A mobile consumer survey by Deloitte in 2016 found that 40 percent of consumers check their phones within five minutes of waking up.

So, now you know when you need to send out the emails.