Simon Kennell 0:02
Welcome back for another Talaera Bit. As always, my name is Simon, and I hope you're having a great day. So what are we talking about today? Email subjects.
Now, it sounds like a very obvious thing. But it's surprisingly something that very often gets done incorrectly. If you're sending emails, and you're kind of seeing that you're not getting a lot of responses, this could be one reason.
Think about someone that's going through their email inbox, right, they're reading the subject lines. And then based on the subject lines, they're deciding which emails take priority, the subject line is really your first way to get someone's attention. Now, the email subject line is something that you don't want to necessarily be. It doesn't need to be creative or funny. It just needs to quickly say what the email is about.
Remember when we talk about just communication in general, but also just in our email writing, clarity is key. And the same thing goes for the email subject line. So it should be short, six words or less.
Okay, and you want to filter out unnecessary filler words like Hello, or this will be or you know, anything like that, right? We really want it to be very clear, it shouldn't be vague.
So for example, if Marcus is the company president's executive assistant, and I need her remarks for the annual report, I may shoot him a quick email to get a timeline. Right. So a bad subject line versus a good subject line, what would that look like? A bad subject line may just be "Annual report". Okay, so this tells us really nothing. It's just saying "annual report". Well, what about the annual report? If I'm the executive assistant, and I'm going through my email inbox, I'm gonna see annual report. But there's no clear action for me there. There's nothing very, very specific that jumps out to me.
Now, a good subject line may be "President's remarks for annual report". Okay, so here, if I'm the Executive Assistant, I know Okay, yeah, that's right, I need to get the President's remarks for the annual report, I already know what the email is about. And that way, I'll put that in higher priority, because I know pretty much what I need to do if I'm the Executive Assistant.
So think about that, when you're crafting the subject line for the email is, what is this is the first thing this person is going to see. So what is it that they really need to know? What do they already know? And what's going to make it a very simple decision for them to open the email? And, you know, go ahead with what you need them to do.
So for the bad subject, line annual report, right, Marcus is the gatekeeper. And this means that he gets a lot of emails, so just annual report can mean anything. But the good subject line "President remarks for annual report" - this gets straight to the point. And this adds this level of urgency, since he's responsible for his boss, making sure that there's these remarks for the annual report. So remember, clarity is key.
And we want it to very quickly give the action item if I'm the reader. I want to see the subject line and know exactly what it's about.
Now, one final pro tip here, if you have written an email, you can also just write like, copy and paste the email into chat GPT and say, write five subject lines for this email, and you can pick the best one, right?
So again, find with the one that's the most clear clarity is key, it has to really push the urgency and make sure that it's a very clear action item. So hopefully this helps you out. Try it a couple of times. Again, try it and chat GPT if you have any, any doubts about it and see what that could look like, but again, at the end of the day, clarity is key and urgency first. All right. Have a great rest of your day and as always keep learning
Paola Pascual 4:58
And that's all we have for you today. We hope you enjoyed it and remember to subscribe to Talaera talks. We'll be back soon with more
Simon Kennell 5:06
and visit our website at talaera.com for more valuable content on business English. You can also request a free consultation on the best ways for you and your team to improve your communication skills. So have a great day and keep learning!
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