3 Tricks to Get People to Read your Emails
 
1. Make it concrete.
 
As attention spans continue to shorten, it's helpful to remember that the recipients of your message are more likely to be drawn in by concrete language. Business speak is terribly abstract, sometimes to the point of being almost meaningless.

The best way to illustrate this is with an example I'm borrowing from Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die.

 

In 1961, John F. Kennedy communicated what became a very sticky idea by concretely stating that America's goal was to "put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade."

In contrast, consider how Kennedy may have expressed this goal in business speak: "Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace initiatives."

The mental images created by the concrete statement make the idea utterly clear and completely memorable. On the other hand, how many images does your brain harvest from the business-speak statement?
 

2. Add in white space.
 
Big blocks of text are visually daunting and discourage the reader from investing the time and mental energy required to read them.
 
After you've written your message, take an extra minute to read it from the top and insert some hard returns (or blank lines) between complete ideas to create separate paragraphs. Even better, present your thoughts in a bulleted list.
 
3. Test it before you send it.
 
When it's an important email, it's worth taking a break and coming back to the message a little later to re-read it and answer these questions:
            Is it clear?        
            Is it necessary?
            Is there a shorter way to say it?
            Can it be simpler?
 
Think about the message from your audience's point of view. Take into consideration what's important to them and you'll be able to make your points in terms that are more meaningful to them.