How to be effective using E-mail

E-mail is becoming used more and more often to connect with others but unfortunately there are elements in our society who abused this medium. These abusers are referred to as spammers. This abuse makes it even more difficult for you to reach your prospects or clients even though you might have a great product or service which you genuinely believe will add value to their business or personal lives. I have made a habit of sending out a newsletter with something of interest to my client and prospect base on a monthly basis. What astounds me is that many of them do not even open the mail and hence do not read what I have sent them. Those with bad memories often don’t remember who I am and accuse me of spamming them despite having received several regular monthly newsletters with all my details on them. What I find terribly sad is that, to date this spamming accusation has only ever come from people who have approached me via one of my companies to purchase their goods and services. You can only guess at their embarrassment when I phone them to remind them of who I am and that my call is to confirm that their request or demand to be removed from my mailing list has been carried out which effectively also means that I’ve removed their name from the people I cared about (my clients and prospects list) and, unfortunately for them, also means that I’ve removed them as a potential supplier to my company!

I have a simple networking rule. If you deal with me, I will deal with you. If I put business your way, I expect you to give me a fair opportunity with the products and services I provide, should you need them. So, when I deal, I will always give preference to people who deal with me. That’s co-operative networking for mutual benefit.

I have learned that if you want to improve the chances of your e-mail being read, your subject line needs to attract the attention of the recipient. In other words, it needs to follow the same principles of the teaser concept we mentioned earlier.

Here are some subject-line teaser examples about networking that will assist you to design your own teasers around these themes:

If you want to network effectively don’t stay at home.

The five big secrets of networking for profits.

How to network more efficiently

He who can network gets lucky more often than he who cannot.

How to be at the right place at the right time more often using networking.

How to make people instantly like you.

The latest research on networking found that …

Banish bad luck using these effective networking skills.

If you are only wanting to keep in touch with contacts by telling them what you are up to, they are more likely to read something along the lines of “News just in…”, “The latest news from…” or “Guess what we have been up to …?” as opposed to some unconvincing comment in the subject line of your e-mail message.

If you are asking for action regarding a limited time offer you might broadcast “Act now to enjoy this limited time offer….” Or “Only 7 days to go before this opportunity is lost forever…”. Don’t do this with every e-mail that you send out or you will lose credibility.