4 ways to get people to read boring emails when you HAVE to be professional

There are tons of ways to get people to read what you write.
 
If you’re like me, you can (try to) be funny, use wₑᵢᵣd fₒᵣₘₐₜₜᵢₙg, use emojis (), and/or drop early 2000s Ben Stiller movie references and say the word “dumbass” 2x per email (like this).
 
But if you’re in a serious job/situation, you’re probably like… 
 
“What if my writing HAS to be professional/boring?”

What if it’s a

• Work memo?

• Cover letter?

• Private policy update?

• Government-regulated message?

• “Gentle reminder” email to that one annoying account manager who isn’t answering your Qs on the deal that’s closing TOMORROW, DAMN IT?

• Thing people don’t wanna read, but you gotta get them to read?

i.e., anything where you 110% can’t use a cowboy or p̶e̶n̶i̶s̶ eggplant emoji?

Well, you’re in luck.

You don’t have to be super funny or creative.
You don’t even have to be interesting.
You don’t even have to put in that much effort.
 
You can literally just change your formatting.
 
In fact, here are 5 SUPER SIMPLE FORMATTING TIPS you can use right away to get what you want out of your emails, no matter what you use them for.

1. START WITH A SHORT FIRST SENTENCE.

I see many people “front load” their emails with tons of text.
 
They’ll do something like this:
 
Hi Becca,

Like I mentioned in our last call, today is the last day to send in your application for the job at Illumina, so I wanted to make sure that there’s nothing else I can do to assist you as we move forward with your job search.
 
But that’s the OPPOSITE of how your reader’s brain works

People are looking for an easy entry point to info.

Even if you’re very clear on what you’re talking about…

If you start off with a giant block of words, you’re visually telling them, THIS WILL BE WORK TO UNDERSTAND.
 
Start with something brief.

It gives them the appearance of that easy entry point.
 
Hi Becca,

This is a quick reminder that your application to llumina is due today.

I wanted to make sure that there’s nothing else I can do to assist you as we move forward with your job search…

You can use niceties like, Hi! Hope you’re well, but get to the point ASAP.

2. AVOID GIANT PARAGRAPHS.

The easiest way to dissuade people from reading your emails is presenting them with massive, intimidating chunks of undifferentiated text.

I mean, I’m not the formatting police, but look at this:

It’s not even that long and the entire time you’re like, Jesus, Mary, and Joe Madden… what is this ABOUT?

Make it easy on your readers by using 1-2 sentence — 3 sentence MAX — chunks.
 
It’s okay to use some paragraphs, of course.

Just make sure that you’re not sending people something that looks like it was pulled out of your 10th grade world history textbook or the scrambled manifesto of a doomsday cult leader.

3. USE RHYTHM STOPS.

OK, sometimes you WILL have to use chunkier paragraphs, because all of those sentences are connected and it doesn’t make sense to separate them. But, that doesn’t mean you want to send them a wall of text.

Easy fix: A short next sentence.

See what I did just there? ↑ That’s called a Rhythm Stop.

It’s when you have a pattern, and then you interrupt it with a different style. It’s a really effective way to break up your writing even if you’re still using paragraphs. 

Important points or links make great “stoppers.”

(You can use bulleted lists or boldface or italics, too.)

4. BOLDFACE (IF YOU CAN).

Listen.

People are scanners.
They’re skimmers.
They’re sniffers and peepers and browsers.

They are NOT read-all-of-a-sasquatch-sized-email-in-detail-ers.

People want the fastest route to information — and you give that to them when you boldface. Plus, you get to decide what they pay attention to.

… Like I did, just now (Gotcha! Ha. Fool).

I know this isn’t an option for everyone, because some people see this as overly pushy or rude or like you’re yelling at them.

That’s fair. In that case, just use rhythm stops!

5. (BONUS) MAKE YOUR MARGINS ON THE SMALLER SIDE (IF POSSIBLE).

This is my favorite tip, because once I heard it, I realized it was TOTALLY true.

Studies show that people find really wide margins are actually harder for people to read.

TBH, I don’t know why this is.

My guess >> our eyes/brains actually take in much more visual info peripherally than we think, so it feels more efficient and less overwhelming to our brains to have everything closer together or in “one place.”

See for yourself.

Here are wide margins:

Here are smaller margins (on the same email!):

Not every email platform lets you do this, which is fine. If you can, though…

Smaller margins = better 

—

See? No sexy eggplants involved. Just better emails.

Love + Joy,
Ariana