Write Your Emails Backwards For Higher Response Rates

Write Your Emails Backwards For Higher Response Rates

We’ve all had at least one email go unanswered. Writing your emails backwards will help you build the habit of making your point quickly so you can gain more responses, according to Time Management Ninja.

Picture: Ian Lamont/Flickr

The emails we ignore are typically the ones that are muddled with words and leave us wondering if we’ll ever find a call to action. We go into reading an email thinking, “What do you want from me?” and ignore emails that take too long to answer that question. By writing our emails backwards we get to the main action point of the email in the beginning, and give the readers the option of reading the explanation should they need it. This “ask first, explain later” concept makes sense.

Make it the very first line in your message. Then, add whatever short text you need to support the decision or response. This makes it easy for the recipient to know what you want, and even easier for them to respond.

Even if your email is an informational one, use this tactic by putting the “one thing”that you want the reader to take away as the first line.

We’ve talked about this before, but this is an easy way to think of it: just write from the bottom up. If you have a lot of emails that go unanswered, it’s worth a try.

Write Your Emails Backwards for Better Responses [Time Management Ninja]


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