Writing To Get Your Readers Attention: Key Points

• Create a strong subject line that is clear and descriptive of the content.
• Sculpt the message body to make it easily scannable.
• Make the nuggets of information easy to find.
• Your introductory paragraph is vital: Your first impression counts for everything.

Important information in writing attention grabbing emails and posts. Spending time developing an email’s subject line and body is vital in getting your message across. If you are like me and get 30 or more emails per day you probably just quickly skimmed over emails unless something grabs your attention. I only make an exception if I am specifically expecting an email, if not I will generally read less than 20% of an email. Another problem is when I receive an email with a one word subject line such as “Hey” or “Hi” I will generally only refer to it once and then usually never visit it again. The reason is because when an email’s subject line is very descriptive of its content I immediately qualify the content either as desirable or not depending on whether I’m currently seeking information on what the subject describes. In a world where humans are getting increasingly efficient at filtering information, if the subject line describing the email is not clear and concise we automatically tune it out as irrelevant.

The reason I bring this up is because I was reading the July/August issue of Fast Company and on page 46 I came across an article called “Email Is Dead…”. In one of the case studies this article sites the author talks about how Capital One over the last 3 years has put its employees through workshops in order to “reduce email strain by writing better messages”. What they have found is that by writing “stronger subject lines” a recipient knows why they are receiving an email and in the future it makes it easier to refer back to emails. The little blurb about Capital One further expands on clarity by saying that a sculpted email body helps the reader scan through the main body of the message.

I believe that it is vital that companies teach their employees proper email etiquette and that doing so will save the company money and resources in the long run. Doing so will reduce redundancy in email communications and decrease employee stress. Also it should assist the clients in retrieving information efficiently and give them a reason to read entire emails if they pertain to something that they currently need to address. I am reminded of a couple years ago when I sent an email to my university advisor with a weak subject line, and in response she replied: “Remember to send e-mails with identifying headings to get a fast response. That’s how I file them”.

Clarity in the Subject line is not the only thing that you should worry about, because if the body is not easily scannable then your readers will end up ignoring the content and your message. What is important as my as one of my friends and associates stated last week is to make the nuggets of valuable information easily found and make your text easily scannable. Doing so will guarantee that readers will end up drilling more deeply into content and retrieve more value from your writings.

The final thing I have to say is that the introductory sentence of your body need to captivate your audience and grab its attention right away. You have very little time to peak the readers interest before they tune out. So make sure that the first sentence is your strongest and most captivating, because if it isn’t then you are not giving your reader a reason to keep reading.