Short and to the point
Over the last three months I’ve been doing a really vicious email cull. It started by using out-of-office replies to indicate that I wasn’t wedded to my Crackberry, and that I wouldn’t be responding to emails until 4pm every day. This slowed down the onslaught, as writers started to re-consider whether they should email at all.
Then I started ignoring all emails where I was CC’d. You should try this one, it really works. If you’re CC’d it’s not important, and someone’s either covering their proverbial, or giving you information that you *might* need. Ideally, I should script Outlook to delete CC emails as they arrive.
So, emails should be short, to the point, and you should use them when they’re relevant. So, when you’re emailing your customers you are burning up a valuable right to communicate - it should be short, pithy, hard-hitting, and worth reading (and sharing).
Today I received an email from a supplier by mistake. Not only was I CC’d, but so were 200 other businesses in Jersey (BCC is a technology that doesn’t exist for some yet). 20 minutes later we all received another email, apologising for the previous mistake, but with all the emails still present. That’s one way to get your customers talking about you.
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