Chapter 6

Writing Emails That Get Results

In This Chapter

Understanding why email still matters and where it can take you

Writing emails that achieve immediate and long-range goals

Using strategies and techniques that work – and avoiding pitfalls

Love it or hate it, you can’t leave it – email is the nervous system of business life all over the world. Companies may declare e-free Fridays or add newer media like instant messaging or social networks for basic communication but you probably still find that your work life centers on managing your in and out boxes.

The volume and omnipresence of email in your life gives you the opportunity to accomplish your immediate and long-range goals, or screw up both. This chapter shows you how to make the most of this powerful medium and sidestep the traps.

Of course another communication channel may replace email soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. In any case, the guidelines in this chapter apply to whatever comes next, maybe with minor adaptations to formatting and style. The essentials of good communication hold steady.

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Fast-Forwarding Your Agenda In-House and Out-of-House

If you’re wishing for a way to show off your skills, judgment, competence, and resourcefulness and have decision-makers pay attention, shazam – email is the opportunity.

Yes, everyone is overwhelmed with too much email and wants most of it to go away. The reasons are two-fold: most email is unrelated to your interests and needs, and most of it is badly thought out and poorly written. Take a look through your own inbox. You’re likely to find that most of it falls into one of those two categories – or both.

Then take a look at your outbox. Ask yourself (and why not be honest) how many messages you carelessly tossed off without planning or editing. You may feel that this is the nature of the medium – here one minute, gone the next, so not worth investing time and energy. But email is the tool you depend on to get things done, day in and day out.

Moreover, email has become the delivery system for many forms of communication. In earlier times you’d write a cover letter to accompany a résumé, for example, and today you deliver it electronically. But a cover letter for a job application is still a cover letter – no matter how it’s delivered. A short business proposal may also be sent by email, but like a cover letter, needs to be very well written. Resist the temptation to write such material in an off-the-top-of-your-head fashion. If you’re writing what is essentially a letter, check out Chapter 7. If it’s a proposal, or a marketing pitch, see Chapters 8 and 9, respectively.

Good emails bring you the results you want. Even more, writing good emails every time – no exceptions – brings you amazing opportunities to reach the people you want to reach with a message about you: how intelligent, resourceful and reliable you are, for example, and how well you communicate. Even those humdrum in-house emails contribute incrementally to your positive image as an efficient professional, and give you a long-range advantage way past accomplishing your immediate goal.

Send direct, well-written emails that have a clear purpose and respect people’s time, and you get respect back. People notice and respond to well-written messages, though admittedly, most do so unconsciously.

The higher you go in an organization’s hierarchy, the more people tend to recognize good writing and value it because they see so little of it these days. Executives are acutely aware of how badly written emails, even on mundane matters, can create:

Misunderstandings that generate mistakes

Needless dissent among employees and departments

Inefficiency, because countering unclear messages demands much more communication

A staggering waste of collective time and productivity.

Smart leaders are even more aware of how poor email messaging can affect an organization’s interface with the world at large, resulting in

Weakened company image and reputation

Disaffected customers

Missed opportunities to connect with new customers

Long-term damage to relationships with the public, investors, suppliers, lenders, partners, media, regulators, and donors – all of which directly affect the company’s bottom line.

Take email seriously and it will give you many happy returns. Decision-makers in your workplace who value clear communication will value you all the more. In addition:

Email offers huge opportunities to develop relationships in the course of doing business. To build and sustain a network of trusted colleagues and contacts inhouse and out can only benefit you over the long term.

Email gives you access to the loftiest heights. Fifteen years ago the idea that you could directly write to your CEO, or the hiring manager of your dream employer, was unthinkable. Now you can, and she may read it and even respond – if you make your message good.

Email is your entrée to reaching people all over the world. Without it, international trade would depend on mail systems and faxes for making initial contact. Surely email is the unsung hero of globalization.

If you’re an independent entrepreneur, consultant, freelancer or outside contractor, recognize that emails can make or break your enterprise. Written well, emails can help generate what you need: in-person meetings, opportunities to compete for business, new agreements, relationships of trust, and ways to promote what you do.

Getting Off to a Great Start

Your first imperative in drafting an email: draw your reader to open it – and read it. Sound easy? Not at all, given the sheer volume of messages that motivates most people to press the Delete key for any excuse they can come up with. That’s another reason why every email you send must be good: you don’t want a reputation for sending pointless, hard-to-decipher messages that lead people to ignore the important ones that you craft carefully.

With email, the lead has two parts – the subject line and the opening sentence or paragraph. I explore each in detail in the following sections.

Writing subject lines that get your message read

Take another look at your inbox and scan the subject lines. Note which ones you opened and why. Most of them probably fall into one of these categories:

Must-read because of essential information

Subject: New location, May 3rd meeting

Must-read because of urgency

Decision on Plan A needed today

Must-read because of who the writer is (in which case the ‘From’ matters, too)

From: President White

Subject: Department reorganization planned

Want-to-read because you need the information or it may be valuable

Subject: Free tools to recover deleted files

Want-to-read because it looks like a good deal

Subject: Lowest iPhone price ever

Want-to-read because it’s from a trusted source

From: Kickstarter

Subject: Projects we love: mobile murals

Want-to-read because it sounds interesting or fun:

From: Bronx Zoo

Subject: Come see our tiger cubs!

Few messages are required reading. Your challenge in writing email subject lines is to zero in on what’s most likely to concern or interest your reader. But you must always be fair. Don’t promise something in the package that isn’t actually there after your reader opens it.

To create a good subject line that keeps fingers off that Delete key:

1. Figure out what’s most relevant to your reader in the message – why the person should care.

2. Think of the absolutely most concise way of saying it.

3. Put the key words as far to the left as possible so your recipient understands the meat of your message quickly and easily.

Subject lines work best when they’re as specific as possible. Here are two examples of emails I didn’t open because the subject lines were too vague and general to capture my interest. I also suggest ways the message could work better.

Poor: Important question

Better: Where is tomorrow’s workshop?

Poor: June newsletter

Better: New Twitter techniques in June issue

Ensuring that the most important words appear in your recipient’s inbox window and aren’t cut off for lack of space – or because they’re reading on smartphones and other hand-held devices – is worth the thought every time. Very few people pay attention to this simple principle so build this habit to reap a big advantage.

Following are a few examples of truncated subject lines from my own computer that I didn’t open.

The Coach’s Corner: 9 ways to. . .

Did you ever wish that y. . .

Express yourself with a perso. . .

As an experiment, I opened the last one to see what it was about and found that the full subject line was: ‘Express yourself with a personalized dish’. Had the line begun: ‘Your personalized dish’, or ‘Your name on stoneware’, I’d have opened the email.

Investing in good, accurate subject lines always rewards you. You may not be able to deliver the whole of your subject in the limited amount of characters your recipient’s inbox allows, but try to get the gist across. Ordinarily you needn’t aim to be clever; but if the message is important, spend some time to make the first few words intriguing.

If you can’t come up with a tight subject line that communicates the core of your message, consider the possibility that your message may not have a core – or any meaning at all to your reader. Review both the subject line and the entire message to see whether you’re perfectly clear on why you’re writing and what outcome you want.

Be sure to review your subject line after you write the whole message. You may shift tack in the course of writing. In fact, the writing process can lead you to think through your reason for creating the message and how to best make your case. Drafting the message first and then distilling the subject line is often easier.

Don’t be lazy about changing the subject lines of long message threads. If you don’t, people may overlook your new input. Later on, both you and the recipient may be frustrated when looking for a specific message. Try for some continuity, however, so it doesn’t look like a whole different topic. If the first email of a series is identified as ‘Ideas for Farber proposal’, for example, a new subject line might say ‘Farber proposal 3rd November update’. Keep the subject lines obviously relevant to everyone concerned.

Most people use email as their personal database to draw on as needed, so always label messages in ways that make them findable.

Using salutations that suit

The greeting you use is also part of the lead. Draw on a limited repertoire developed for letters:

Dear. . .

Hi. . .

Hello. . .

You can use ‘Greetings’ or something else but be sure it doesn’t feel pretentious.

Follow with first name or last as appropriate, using the necessary title (Miss, Ms, Mrs, Mr). For the plural, Mesdames and Messieurs definitely feel over the top for English speakers. For groups you can sometimes come up with an aggregate title, such as ‘Dear Software X Users’, ‘Dear Subscribers’, ‘Hi Team’, and so on. Don’t be homey or quirky. Using ‘folks’, for example, can grate on people sooner or later. Avoid generalizations like ‘Dear Customer’ if you’re writing to an individual. These days, people expect to be addressed by name.

Often people who know each other well or are transacting business in a series of emails dispense with the title, and simply start the message with the person’s name, for example, ‘John’. That’s fine if doing so feels comfortable. Generally speaking, don’t omit a name altogether and plunge right into your message. You miss an important chance to personalize. You can, however, build a name into the opening line, as in: ‘I haven’t heard from you in a while, Jerry, so thought I’d check where things stand.’

Drafting a strong email lead

The first sentence or two of your message should accomplish the same goal as the lead of a newspaper article: attract your readers’ attention, present the heart of what you want to say, and give them a reason to care. Plus, you need to tell readers what you want.

Because email leads usually include the same information that appears in the subject line, try not to repeat the same wording or the same information. Email copy occupies valuable real estate. Your best chance of enticing people to read the whole message is to make the lead and everything that follows read fast and tight.

Your email lead can consist of one sentence, two sentences or a paragraph as needed. When the subject line clearly suggests your focus, you can pick up the thread. For example:

Subject: Preparing for the August meeting

Hi Jenn,

Since we need the materials for the Willow conference in less than a week, I’d like to review their status with you ASAP.

Often you need a context or clarifying sentence before you get to your request.

Subject: Timing on design hire

Hilary, you mentioned that you’d like to bring in a graphic designer to work on the stockholder report ASAP. However, I won’t be able to supply finished copy until April 3rd.

Note how quickly both of the preceding messages get to the point. Your everyday in-house messages should nearly always do so, whether addressed to peers, subordinates or immediate supervisors. But never sacrifice courtesy. The right tone is essential to make your message work. I talk about that later in the sidebar ‘Finding the right tone for email’.

In the case of messages to people who are outside your own department or company, you often need to include more framing. Suppose you’re responsible for fielding customer complaints and must write to an irate woman who claims your company sold her a defective appliance.

Dear Ms Black,

Your letter about your disappointment with the new Magnaline blender has been brought to my attention. I am happy to help resolve the problem.

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A good subject line and lead rarely just happen: you achieve them by thoughtful planning. That doesn’t mean you can’t draft the complete email and then go back and strengthen or change the lead. In fact, you may prefer to figure out the main point through the writing process itself. Just be sure you leave time to edit when you proceed that way. See Chapters 4 and 5 for more on editing and revising.

Building Messages That Achieve Your Goals

You build a successful email at the intersection of goal and audience. Intuition can take you far, but analyzing both factors in a methodical way improves all your results. Knowing your goal and your audience is especially critical when you’re handling a difficult situation, trying to solve a problem or writing a message that’s really important to you.

Clarifying your own goals

Email often seems like a practical tool for getting things done. You write to arrange a meeting, receive or deliver information, change an appointment, request help, ask or answer a question, and so on. But even simple messages call for some delving into what you really want.

Consider Amy, a new junior member of the department, who hears that an important staff meeting was held and she wasn’t invited. She could write the following:

Tom, I am so distressed to know I was excluded from the staff meeting last Thursday. Was it just an oversight, or should I take it as a sign that you think my contribution has no value?

Bad move! Presenting herself as an easily offended childish whiner undermines what she really wants – to improve her positioning in the department. Instead of using the opportunity to vent, Amy can take a dispassionate look at the situation and build a message that serves her true goal:

Tom, I respectfully request that I be included in future department meetings. I am eager to learn everything I can about how we operate so I can do my work more efficiently and contribute more. I’ll very much appreciate the opportunity to better understand department thinking and initiatives.

With external communication, knowing your goal is just as important. For example, if you’re responsible for answering customer complaints about defective appliances and believe your goal is to make an unhappy customer go away, you can write:

We regret your dissatisfaction, but yours is the only complaint we have ever received. We suggest you review the operating manual.

If you assume your job is to mollify the customer on a just-enough level you may say:

We’re sorry it doesn’t work. Use the enclosed label to ship it back to us, and we’ll repair it within six months.

But if your acknowledged goal is to retain this customer as a future buyer of company products, while generating good word of mouth and maybe even positive rather than negative tweets, you’re best off writing:

We’re so sorry to hear the product didn’t work as you hoped. We’re shipping you a brand new one today. I’m sure you’ll be happy with it, but if not, please call me right away at my personal phone number. . .

For both Amy’s and the customer service scenarios, keeping your true, higher goals in mind often leads you to create entirely different messages. The thinking is big picture and future-oriented: In Amy’s case, the higher purpose is to build a relationship of trust and value with a supervisor and gain opportunities. In the unhappy customer case, you want to reverse a negative situation and cultivate a loyal long-term customer.

Be the best person you can in every message you send. Every email is a building block for your reputation and future. And email is never private: electronic magic means your message can go anywhere anyone wants to send it – and you can’t erase it, ever.

Assessing what matters about your audience

After you’re clear on what you want to accomplish with your email, think about your audience – the person or group you’re writing to. One message, one style does not fit all occasions and individuals. As I point out in Chapter 2, when you ask someone to do something for you in person, you instinctively choose the best arguments to make your case. You adapt your arguments as you go along according to the other person’s reactions – his words, body language, expression, tone of voice, inflection, and all the other tiny clues that tell you how the other person is receiving your message in the moment you’re delivering it.

An email message, of course, provides no visual or oral feedback. Your words are on their own. So your job is to think through, in advance, how your reader is most likely to respond and base what you write on that.

Anticipating a reader’s reaction can take a little imagination. You may find you’re good at it. Try holding a two-way conversation with the person in your head. Observe what she says and how she says it. Note any areas of resistance and other clues.

You also have another sure-fire way to predict your reader’s reaction: systematically consider the most relevant factors about that person or group. Chapter 2 gives you a comprehensive list of factors that may relate to what you want to accomplish.

Do you need to consider so many aspects when you’re drafting every email? No, if your goal is really simple, like a request to meet. But even then, you’re better off knowing whether this particular recipient needs a clear reason to spend time with you, how much notice she prefers, if she already has set feelings about the subject you want to discuss, and so on. You can tilt the result in your favor – even for a seemingly minor request – by taking account of such things.

The more major your message is, the more factors you may need to consider. Or perhaps just one facet of the person’s situation or personality may be overwhelmingly important. To shape the right message check out the section ‘Defining your audience: Know your reader’ in Chapter 2 for what’s relevant to the person and the case at hand. Think about the factors that are most relevant in the context of what you’re asking for.

Audience analysis becomes instinctive with practice. And your better results soon reinforce its value.

Certain characteristics are always important. Considering your reader’s age, for example, may seem rude or politically incorrect, but business writer beware – especially with emails. Different generations have genuinely different attitudes toward work, communications, rewards, authority, career development and much more. If you’re a Gen Y (born after 1980) or Gen X (born 1965 to 1980), you need to understand the Boomer’s (born 1946 to 1964) need for respect, hierarchical thinking, correct grammar, courtesy, in-person communication, and more. I talk about this fully in Chapter 2.

I often ask participants in writing workshops to create detailed profiles of their immediate supervisors. Pretend that you’re an undercover secret agent and you’re asked to file a report on the person you report to. Take 20 minutes and see what you can put together. First scan the demographic, psychographic, positioning, and personality traits I outline in Chapter 2 and list those you think seem relevant to defining that person (for example, age; position; information preferences; hot buttons; decision-making style). Then fill in what you know or intuit about the person under each category. You probably find that you understand far more about your boss than you think.

Read through the completed profile and you see major clues on how to communicate with that important person on a routine basis, as well as how to work with him successfully overall and make yourself more highly valued. You may uncover ways to strengthen your relationship or even turn it around.

Suppose you’re inviting your immediate supervisor, Jane, to a staff meeting where you plan to present an idea for a new project. You hope to persuade her that your project is worth the resources to make it happen. First clarify your goal, or set of goals. Perhaps, in no particular order, you aim to:

Obtain Jane’s buy-in and endorsement

Get input on project tweaks sooner rather than later

Gain the resources you need for the project

Demonstrate what a terrific asset you are (always, always a constant)

You know Jane is heavily scheduled and the invite must convince her to reserve the time. What factors about her should you consider? Your analysis may suggest the following:

Demographics: Jane is young for her position, and the first woman to hold that job. Observation supports the idea that she feels pressured to prove herself. She drives herself hard and works 60-hour weeks.

Psychographics: She is famously pro-technology, a true believer and early adaptor.

Positioning: She has the authority to approve a pilot program but probably not more. She’s probably being groomed for higher positions and is closely monitored.

Personality/communication style: She likes statistics. She likes evidence. She’s an impatient listener who makes decisions when she feels she has just enough information. Her hottest button is being able to show her own manager that she’s boosted her department’s numbers. How to do that probably keeps her up at night, along with how generally to impress her boss toward her next promotion. She takes risks if she feels reasonably sheltered from bad consequences.

Presto! With these four points, you have a reader profile to help you write Jane a must-come email – and even more important, a guide that enables you to structure an actual meeting that accomplishes exactly what you want.

Determining the best content for emails

After you know your goal and audience, you have the groundwork in place for good content decisions. You know how to judge what information is likely to lead the person or group to respond the way you want. (See Chapter 2 for guidance on how to address groups and construct a reader that epitomizes that group.)

To figure out what you need to say, play a matching game: what information, facts, ideas, statistics, and so on will engage the person and dispose him to say ‘yes’?

Think about audience benefits. This important marketing concept applies to all persuasive pitches. Benefits speak to the underlying reasons you want something. A dress, for example, possesses features like color, style, and craftsmanship, but the benefit is that it makes the wearer feel beautiful. When you’re planning a message and want it to succeed, think about the audience and goal, and write down your first ideas about matching points and benefits.

For example, to draw Jane from the preceding section to that meeting, based on your analysis, the list may include:

Evidence that the idea works well somewhere else

Information on how cutting-edge technology will be used

Potential for the idea to solve a major problem for the department

Suggestion that other parts of the company will also be interested and impressed

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Many other ideas may be relevant – it’s great for the environment, it gives people more free time – but probably not to Jane.

Structuring Your Middle Ground

Think of your email message like a sandwich: The opening and closing hold your content together and the rest is the filling. Viewed in this way most emails are easy to organize. Complicated messages full of subtle ideas and in-depth instructions or pronouncements are inappropriate to the medium anyway.

Email’s typical orientation toward the practical means that how you set up and how you close count heavily – but the middle still matters. Typically the in-between content explains why – why a particular decision should be made, why you deserve an opportunity, or why the reader should respond positively. The middle portion can also explain in greater detail why a request is denied, provide details and technical backup, or a series of steps to accomplish something.

Figure out middle section content by first brainstorming what points will accomplish your goal in terms of your target audience as I outline in the preceding sections. Then do the following:

1. Write out a neat, simple list of the points to make. One example is the list I created to convince Jane to come to a meeting with a positive mindset in the ‘Determining the best content for emails’ section.

2. Scan your list and frame your lead.

Your lead is the sentence or paragraph that clearly tells readers why you’re writing and what you want in a way most likely to engage their interest.

Starting with the bottom line is almost always your best approach for organizing a message. Remember the reporter’s mantra: ‘Don’t bury the lead.’

Skipping the subject line for now, a get-Jane-to-the-meeting message can begin like this:

Hi Jane,

I’m ready to show you how using new social media can help us increase market share for our entire XL line. After checking the online calendar for your availability, I scheduled the demo for March 5 at 2. Can you meet with me and my team then?

To structure the middle, consider the previously identified points that are most important to Jane:

Evidence that the idea works well somewhere else

Opportunity to use cutting edge technology

Potential to solve a major problem

Potential for wide company interest

You then simply march through these points for the body of the message. For example:

My research shows that two companies in related industries have reaped 15 to 20 per cent increases in market share in just a few months. For us, the new media I’ve identified can potentially move XL out of the sales doldrums of the past two quarters.

Further, we’ll be positioning our department at the cutting edge of strategic social media marketing. If we succeed as I anticipate, I see the whole company taking notice of our creative leadership.

The thinking you did before you started to write now pays handsome dividends. With a little reshuffling of the four points, you have a persuasive memo that feels naturally organized and logical. You not only know your content, but how it fits together.

This process may sound easy to do with an invented example, but actually, working with real ideas and facts is even easier.

Your biggest strength in building a successful message in any format is to know your story. Organizing a clear email is rarely a problem after you determine your content. You simply need to know such factors as:

How the person you want to meet with may benefit by seeing you

Why your recipient will find your report or proposal of interest

Why the employment manager should read your résumé.

Review the list you assemble, decide which points to include and put them in a logical order. Your list may include more thoughts than you need for a convincing message, and you can be selective. That’s fine. ‘Just enough’ is better than too much.

This basic premise works with longer more formal documents as well, as I show in Chapter 8.

Closing Strong

After you write your lead and the middle, you need to close (and perhaps circle back to fill in or hone your subject line).

When you use the guidelines in the preceding sections to begin messages and develop the middle, your close needs to only reinforce what you want. An email doesn’t need to end dramatically. You just want to circle back to the beginning and add any more relevant information to the ‘ask’.

If you requested a decision on something, saying something like, ‘I look forward to knowing your decision by October 21st,’ is sufficient.

If you’re delivering a report, your close may be, ‘I appreciate your review. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like additional information.’

In the case of the memo to Jane, the closing might be simply, ‘Please let me know if March 5th at 2 p.m. works for you. If not, I’m happy to reschedule.’

Sign of with courtesy and tailor the degree of formality to the occasion and relationship. If you’re writing to a very conservative person or a businessman in another culture, a formal closing like ‘Sincerely’ is often best. The same is true for a résumé cover letter, which is essentially a letter in email form and should look like a letter.

But in most situations, less formal end-signals are better:

‘Thanks!’ ‘I look forward to your response.’ ‘Best regards,’ or a variant. Generally avoid cute signoffs like ‘Cheers.’ I recommend always ending with your name – first name if you know the person or are comfortable establishing informality. Even if your reader is someone who hears from you all the time, using your name personalizes the message and alerts her that the communication is truly finished.

Actually, your finished message needs one more thing – the subject line. Consider at this point the total thrust of your content. What words and phrases work best to engage your audience’s interest.

The ‘Jane’ subject line, for example, needs to get across that your message is a meeting invitation, suggest what it’s about and emphasize that it is worth her time. Perhaps:

Need you there: 3rd May Demo, Social Media Project

Perfecting Your Writing for Email

Email deserves your best writing, editing and proofreading skills. Often the message is who you are to your audience. You may be communicating with someone you’ll never meet, in which case the virtual interaction determines the relationship and the success of the transaction. At other times, crafting good emails wins you the opportunity to present your case in person or progress to the next stage of doing business.

People look for clues about you and draw conclusions from what you write and how you write it. Even if your ideas are good, incorrect grammar and spelling lose you more points than you may suspect no matter how informal your relationship with the recipient seems.

The following sections run through some of my top tips for crafting text that perfectly suits email.

Monitoring length and breadth

Keep emails to fewer than 300 words and stick to one idea or question. Three hundred words can go a long way (the memo I wrote to draw Jane to the meeting in the preceding section ended up only 145 words total).

Such limits are hard to consistently observe, but you’re wise to remember how short people’s attention spans are, especially for online reading. That’s why you benefit from knowing your central point or request and opening with it. Don’t bury it as a grand conclusion. Nor should you bury any important secondary questions at the end.

Aim to make emails as brief and tight as you can. If your message starts to grow too much, reconsider whether email is the appropriate format. You may choose to use the message as a cover note and attach the full document. Or you may want to break the message up into components to send separately over a reasonable space of time. But realize that you risk losing your audience if you send a series of messages.

Signalling style

Choose words and phrases that are conversational, friendly, business-like, and unequivocally clear. Email is not the place for fanciful language and invention. Put your energy into the content and structure of your message.

Try to make your presentation transparent, eliminating all barriers to understanding. Your messages may end up less colorful than they could be, and that’s OK. Clear, concise language is especially relevant to messages directed at overseas audiences, as I show in Chapter 13.

Going short: Words, sentences, paragraphs

The business writing guidelines I present in Chapter 3 apply even more intensely to email. You want your message to be readable and completely understood in the smallest possible amount of time.

Draw on the plain old Anglo-Saxon word-stock, mostly one-syllable words. Use two syllable words when they express ideas better; three syllables when they’re the best choice, but reserve more lengthy and complex words for when they serve real purpose.

Short sentences work for the same reason. Aim for 10 to 15 words long on average. Paragraphs should be one to three sentences long to support comprehension and build in helpful white space.

Using graphic techniques to promote clarity

The graphic techniques I discuss here don’t require special software or a degree in fine arts. They’re simply ways to visually present information and make your writing more organized and accessible.

Do everything you can to incorporate generous white space (areas with no text or graphics) into your writing. Don’t crowd your messages and leave them (and the reader) gasping for air. White space allows the eye to rest and focuses emphasis where you want it. Short paragraphs with double returns instantly create white space.

Add subheads

Subheads are great for longer emails. You can make the type bold and add a line of space above it. Subheads for email can be matter of fact:

Why decide now

Step 1 (followed by Step 2 and so on)

Final recommendation

Pros and cons

Background

This technique neatly guides the reader through the information and also enables you as a writer to organize your thinking and delivery with ease.

Drafting all your subheads before you write can be a terrific way to achieve good organization. Pick a message that you already wrote and found challenging. Think the subject through to come up with the major points or steps to cover and write a simple, suitable subhead for each. Put the subheads in logical order and add the relevant content under each. (Each section need not be more than a paragraph long.) Now check if all the necessary information to make your point is there – if not, add it. Your message is sure to become clearer and more cohesive and persuasive.

Providing your own structure in this way may make writing easier, particularly if you feel organizationally challenged. It helps ensure that you don’t leave out anything important, too.

Here’s an extra trick. If you feel that you have too many subheads after drafting the entire message, just cut some or all of them out. You still have a solid, logically organized email. Just be sure to check that the connections between sections are clear without the subheads.

Bring in bulleted and numbered lists

Bullets offer another excellent option for presenting your information. They are:

Readily absorbed

Fast to read

Easy to write

Useful for equipment lists, examples, considerations, and other groupings

However, observe a few cautions:

Don’t use more than six or seven bullets in a list. A long stretch of bullets loses all impact; they become mindnumbing and hard to absorb.

Don’t use them to present ideas that need context or connection.

Don’t mix and match. The items on your list must be parallel, so that they begin with the same kind of word – a verb, a noun, or in the case of my first bullet list, an adverb.

Never use bullet lists as a dumping ground for thoughts that you’re too lazy to organize or connect. If you doubt this advice, think of all the bad PowerPoint shows you’ve seen – screens rife with random-seeming bullets.

Numbered lists are also helpful, particularly if you’re presenting a sequence or step-by-step process. Instructions work well in numbered form. Give numbered lists some air so that they don’t look intimidating – skip a space between each number.

Consider bold face

Making your type bold gives you a good option for calling attention to key topics, ideas, or subsections of your message. You can use bold for lead-ins:

Holiday party coming up. Please see the task list and choose your way of contributing. . .

You may also use bold to highlight something in the body of the text:

Please see the task list and choose your way of contributing by December 10.

Of course, don’t overload your message with bold face or it undermines its reason for being. Keep in mind that boldface doesn’t always transfer across different email systems and software, so don’t depend on it too much for making your point.

Underlining important words or phrases is another option.

Respect overall graphic impact

Avoid undercutting your content through bad graphic presentation. Plain and simple is the way to go. Use plain text or the simplest HTML – no tricky, cute, or hard to read fonts. Don’t write whole messages in capitals or italics, and don’t use a rainbow of color – that’s distracting rather than fun for readers. Avoid that crammed-in feeling. People simply do not read messages that look dense and difficult. Or they read as little of them as possible. Like everything you write, an email must look inviting and accessible.

Using the signature block

Contact information these days can be very complex. Typically you want people to find you by email or telephone. Plus there’s your tagline. Your company name. Your website. Your blog. The book you wrote. The article you got published. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Professional affiliations and offices. And potentially much more.

Decide on a few things you most want to call attention to and refrain from adding the rest. Better yet, create several signature blocks for different audiences. Then you can select the most appropriate one for the people you’re writing to. Don’t include your full signature block every time you respond to a message, especially if you incorporate a logo, which arrives as an attachment. Check your email program’s settings so the automatic signature is minimal, or altogether absent.

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