This is something that has always bugged me on SAP Projects. You send somebody an important email, or reply to an email, only to discover several days later, that they never bothered to open it. How do you get them to open your email?

I decided to start observing myself. I get about 100 email’s a day (about 65% is spam and goes to my spam folder). Why do I open some email’s and why do I ignore others? Let use practical example to examine these questions.

Here is a snapshot of my personal mailbox for the last 40 minutes.

The first that strikes me is that the main thing that makes me open an email, is the Title.

Why don’t I just open and read them all? This shows 10 email’s in the last 40 minutes. Of these, 6 want me to buy something, 2 are concerning some consulting opportunities, 1 is from a friend and 1 is a daily inspirational quota. Lets say I looked at all of the email’s and it took me about 2 minutes for each. That is 20 minutes gone from my life. And that is only And has any of these email’s advanced my goals for the day. Unlikely.

So, with this small sample, we can conclude the following:

For me to advance and complete my daily goals, I need to ignore of filter out 95% of my EMail. Ideally, it should not even enter my mailbox as it just distracts my focus and attention.

Let’s face it, everybody today, wants a bit of your attention (time). Read this, look at this, buy this. And there is no way to shut it off. So how do we sift through the clutter to get to the stuff that is most relevant to us now? There was a study done at some university that resulted in the following term:

ADS – Attention Deficit Syndrome. Where a person exhibits the behaviour of ADD without actually having ADD.

Time is a precious commodity that we do not get back, and everybody wants a piece of our time. No wonder we are scattered and unproductive. If you are like me, there are times when I shout:

Stop the World,
I wanna get Off !!!

Back to email. So, back to the question: How do we get others to open our important email’s?

Here are 7 keys to getting your email read:

1. It is all about trust. And trust gets built up over time. Do I know you? Do I care what you have to say? Do you respect me and the value of my time? Have you built a reputation with me, for getting to the point and giving me information that is relevant?
2. Always add a title to your email. And, pay attention to that title. Make sure it is something that I would be compelled to open. Give me a clue to the contents, so I can prioritize what to open first. Or you move to the bottom of the list
3. If you are replying to an email, add something to the title to make me aware that there is more information I need to read. You are not just replying with Thanks. I appreciate getting the courtesy of “Thanks”, but I will look at it later.
4. Keep it short and to the point. And make sure it is relevant to me.
5. What do you want me to do?
6. Always answer the question: What do I care?
7. Take the time to establish my Trust.

In summary, put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Why should they care and open your email.

Hope you found these secrets useful. Feel free to leave comments in my blog.

The SAPGuy