Texting and IM’ing are hugely popular, but the truth is email is still the lifeblood of business communication. And because of the amount of emails we receive, they’re also really easy to ignore. Alex Moore, CEO of Boomerang, has studied 300,000 messages to find out how to maximize the impact of your emails. He’s revealing the secrets of writing emails that get opened, read and answered.

1. Relax Your Salutations

Moore recommends losing the old-school salutations to increase the percentage of people who reply. Turns out, “Dear” only has a 56 percent response rate. Not good! You should also avoid, “greetings,” which actually had a lesser response rate than “dear.” In general, less formal greetings perform better. If you use a “Hi,” “Hey” or “Hello” to open an email, your response rate will go up into the low- to mid-sixties, which is significant.

2. Know When to Send

The best times to send emails are Tuesdays and Wednesdays early in the morning or at lunch. Because Mondays people tend to be slammed, and they tend to view emails first thing in the morning or right when they get back from lunch, and you want to be at the top of the pile.

3. Stop Shouting

STOP SHOUTING in your subject lines. If you write in all-caps, people don’t take you seriously, resulting in 15 percent fewer responses than average. Also try to keep them short. You want your subject line to be somewhere between two and seven words in length, so that it doesn’t get cut off on mobile devices.

4. Weaponize Your Sign-Off

Next, weaponize your sign-off with three words, like “thanks in advance.” You would think that it’s the most annoying, presumptuous, passive-aggressive sign-off possible, but it seems like there’s sort of an assumption that something will be done.

5. K.I.S.S. – Keep It Stupid, Stupid

That’s right. Keeping it simple is key! It turns out the optimal reading grade level for an email is actually third grade. So, if you keep your sentences short and your words simpler, you’re about 40 percent more likely to get a response.

So, there you have it. We all hate sending emails and getting ignored, but using these tips might just give you a hand in getting that reply you’ve been waiting for.

Do YOU agree with these pointers? Sound off on those comments down below! 

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