Today's video was sponsored by SaneBox. SaneBox is the easy and all-in-one tool to help you keep your email inbox clean.
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And of course, all of these folders are smart. And so, it learns from your behavior over time, but of course you can make changes along the way so you can tweak SaneBox to get the most out of your inbox. If you'd like to learn more and try SaneBox for free, be sure to click the link in the description below.
You have a lot of email to write today. And many of those emails include questions in which you are wanting a response. So, how can you increase your chances of getting a reply to your emails? Well, that's what I'm gonna show you how to do today.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And today I wanna share with you four tips, four steps to help you increase your chances of getting an email reply.
And we're gonna get things kicked off with, of course, the subject line. Now, sometimes we are too brief with our subject line. And you wanna make sure to take just a few seconds to make sure that your subject line is optimized. Because if someone doesn't open up your email, well, you can guarantee you're not going to get your response.
So, two things to keep in mind with your subject line, number one, you wanna be specific so that the person receiving your message knows exactly what you're talking about or can guess what the contents are gonna be within that email.
But the other thing we wanna keep in mind is to keep our length in check. Studies would show that the optimal length of a subject line is somewhere between three to seven words.
It's hard to be specific with just one or two words but because we are dealing with emails so often on our mobile devices, we wanna keep it to seven words maximum so that the person reading it can see the full subject line and not get things hidden and again decide to move on to something else.
In my example here, I'm gonna be replying or sending an email to someone that I've already had a previous conversation with. I'm gonna be sending them a pricing quote or actually I'm gonna be following up with them about a pricing quote. So, my subject line is going to read Pricing Quote for Productivity Workshop. Oh spell it right there. So, very detailed of course here. It's about the workshop, and it's about a pricing quote. So, when the person receives this, they're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm within this three to seven-word limit.
Now moving on to the body of the message itself, now depending on who you're speaking with, the topic, and so forth, I could go through so many different examples here. You're gonna know how to write the optimal message, at least what words to include within your message. But just like we saw that there was an optimal length for a subject line, studies have also shown that there's an optimal length for the body of your email message. That's somewhere 50 and 125 words.
Now keeping your message below 125 words probably makes sense. You wanna get to the point so that that person doesn't have to sift through three or four paragraphs to find out what you're asking or what you're needing. But you also wanna make sure not to be too brief because when we send emails that are only one or perhaps two sentences in length, studies have also shown that people sort of scoff at them and they don't consider them very weighty or that they are very important.
If it's just one or two sentences, maybe this could have been included in a text or instant messaging. Often, we won't give them the weight that they deserve. So, you wanna shoot for about a 50 word minimum but also 125 word maximum.
Now I'm not gonna get into the details of the contents of my message because of course each and every email is unique. But tip number three has to do with the question itself.
Here you can see at the very end of my message, I said, "Can we set up a call for Thursday to discuss in more detail?" My tip for you here isn't so much to do with length but the placement of this question. Sometimes when you've added the question in the middle of a paragraph or even at the end of a short paragraph like this one here, it can get lost in the mix.
So, my tip for you here, whatever that key question is, is to put it on a separate line, a distinct line within your email. The reason being, is that it's so much easier to see. In fact, when this person first opens up this email, they may actually see this question mark in the corner of their eye even before they've started reading the entire email itself.
So, I have found it very, very effective to put your question on a separate line. You can catch them up to speed up here. You can give them some other content or backstory here. But when it comes to that key question that you're asking, try putting it on a separate line. It just makes it stand out that much more. Studies have also shown that we tend to reopen and touch an email multiple times.
And so, instead of getting caught up to speed as to what is the question or what do I need to do with this email, make it easier for the receiver that they can see that question on that separate line.
Now I could hit send at the point and hope that I get a reply to this email. But there's one final step, one final tip I wanna share with you, and that has to do with your sign-off. Now sometimes we sort of scoff and don't think that sign-offs means a great deal, but there's a lot of interesting research that would tell us otherwise. Some people might say things like cheers or take care or maybe even thanks. Thanks isn't too bad. It's polite. That can often increase your chances.
But let's go one step further. We're gonna put thanks in advance. Again, some pretty interesting research has shown that thanks in advance will greatly increase your chances of getting a reply. Of course, none of this is going to guarantee a reply, but there's something about thanking someone before they've actually done the request or before that they've answered your question.
It makes the person who's receiving this email almost feel obliged to send you an answer or to send you a request. So, you may want to experiment with including thanks in advance as a part of your sign-off.
So, in quick review, tip number one, in the subject line, let's be specific and keep the word count between three to seven words. Tip number two has to do with the body and keeping our message between 50 and 125 words. In fact, here in Outlook, I can go up here and click on the Word Count. Look at that, 63 words. I'm definitely within that particular range.
Tip number three has to do with the question and try putting it on a separate line. It makes it punch out and make it a little more distinct, easier for the reader. And last but not least, our sign-off, thanks in advance, helping that person to hit the reply button and give us an answer or give us a reply to the question that we've been asking here.
I hope you enjoyed today's video. I'd love to hear your questions and further comments about getting replies within an email. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
