Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
Q: How do I get people to respond to my emails?
A: This is the equally annoying cousin to being ghosted at work. And while it’s frustrating to be the one who takes the time to write an email that is ignored, when you consider the sheer volume of emails we receive every day, it’s understandable that so many go unanswered.
By some estimates, the average office worker gets 120 emails a day. Responding to all of those messages would consume the entire workday. I admit I delete nearly every single mass email and generic PR pitch I receive.
So, how do you write an email that not only gets noticed but also responded to? Think of what gets you to respond to an email. Chances are higher that you’ll respond if you know the sender, if the subject line is clear, if the email is short and easy to skim, and if what is being asked of you is easy to decipher and your response can be quick.
Let’s break each of those down:
Establish familiarity
If you’re sending an email to a colleague, you’ve already overcome this hurdle—but if you’re emailing someone outside of your company, you have to rise above the spam. Adding a genuine personal touch is a good way to break though the generic “hope you are well.”
You don’t have to lay it on too thick, but a sentence opener with some sort of personal connection or something that will jog their memory on how they know you (Know they have kids? “I hope the beginning of the school year is going well.” Met them at a conference? “I enjoyed talking to you after the workshop at the Innovation Festival.”)
Write a clear subject line
When I was in college, one of my journalism professors told the class that the copy editor is the most widely read journalist at any newspaper because they wrote the headlines and captions. While that’s not the way it works in all newsrooms, it’s stuck with me. It’s human nature to skim. Your email subject line is your headline; you have to make it click-worthy if you want the rest of the content to be read.
Put your ask right there in the subject line: “Panelist invite,” “Questions about budget.” You can also put your connection in the subject line if your name won’t be familiar to them “Recommended by Kathleen Davis,” or “Met at last week’s conference.” If you know the receiver gets a lot of similar emails, you can call out how yours is different. For example, I advise freelance journalists pitching me to put “Freelance Pitch:” in the subject line so it will rise above the PR din.
Sometimes people don’t respond to your email because it’s not clear if you need a response. If your email is just informational, you can say that in the subject line or right up top of your email. If you need a response (especially by a certain date or time), make that clear at the end of your subject line: “Newsletter Ideas – Response Needed by Friday.”
Get to the point
Another rule of journalism that applies to email: Don’t bury the lede. Put the most important information (why the reader should care) up top. From there, keep it short. According to an email-marketing study, the best response rate came from emails that were between 50 and 125 words. That’s not a lot. (This paragraph is about 60 words long.)
