Four questions to help you demonstrate effective communication in your emails
Every day at work we communicate with many people. Have you ever asked yourself whether your email is an effective form of communication? How would you measure the effectiveness of your email? I believe there are four questions you can ask yourself when crafting an email to evaluate its effectiveness.But first, understand that the first paragraph with first 4 sentences is your chance to capture attention of the reader. Many people read emails in a content preview mode or just read the first paragraph of email. Typically we receive hundreds emails every day and we all define a technique of figuring out importance of an email. In my experience, capturing readers attention in the first four sentences of an email is crucial part of an effective email.Focus on carefully crafting these four sentences. Ask yourself the four questions listed below about your email to evaluating the effectiveness of this email:
- Will recipients know why they need to read the email sent by you? If they do not know why it matters to them, they won’t spend time on parsing the information. If you need them to read your communication, bring it close to them and “speak their language”. Avoid using “I” and focus on using “you” in the text.
- Will recipients understand the action you asked them to perform in response to your email? If a question is asked, advise recipients you are expecting an answer in return. If action is required, clearly state the request for a specific action to be taken.
- Will recipients understand the purpose of your email? This is the measure of accurately providing concise information and instruction so that it is understood as written. Effective email communication requires attention to purpose and form of content so that recipients clearly understand why the information was sent, and any action they are expected to take in response.
- Will recipients feel all necessary information has been provided in the email? Recipients reply with questions or requests for clarification when the purpose of the email is unclear or the information incomplete. If the email provides all information and instruction pertinent to the subject matter, recipients will respond accordingly.
Asking and answering these four questions before clicking the Send button will likely produce a more successful email exchange, and your email will be an example of an effective communication. Now, of course, there is not a clearly defined scale for grading effectiveness of emails. I encourage you to define yourself what would this mean. Do you want to receive all replies with information requested? Or minimize number of replies with questions or requests for clarification? Evaluate why people may have ignored your email. Or did not provided expected response. I believe if you dedicate 10-15 minutes every day to evaluate your emails, you can drastically improve in effective email communication.
