Email: an author’s guide

Matt May from Blue Flavor has written a short guide on how to write emails. I agree, getting inbox cleaner is not solely the job of mail filters and your workflow, it is a collborative effort to write effective emails for other people. He identifies couple of factors on getting a quick response:

• Brevity
• Context
• Something to act on
• Reasonable expectations
• A deadline

I think something to act on is the most important one:

… You should set them apart from the rest of the message by paring them down to one sentence, with white space before and after. Make lists with dashes, asterisks, or bullets if you use HTML email. Closed-ended (yes or no, this or that) questions are preferred; open-ended questions can get long and involved, reducing their overall relevancy and the likelihood that you’ll get the response you desire…

What are other factors you put in to ensure a clear communication in emails?

Email: an author’s guide – [Blue Flavor]