Get Your Emails Read

Your e-mail receivers decide in the first three seconds to either read or delete your email. Obviously you want them to read your e-mail, but you also want them to respond to whatever you’ve asked them to do.  That means you need to find a way to get past their delete button, and capture their attention.

There are two keys factors:

• The message
• Your approach

Even if you’re emailing a list of people who have never heard of you or your ministry, it’s possible to responses to your e-mail.

Here are Seven Things that will help your e-mails get results:

1. Keep your e-mails short. Keep your initial email as short as possible to encourage them to at least glance over it.  The reality is most of us won’t take time to read a long e-mail so be sure it’s a quick read.  Limit your message to a maximum of four sentences per paragraph, and limit your email to three paragraphs, plus a closing sentence.  Hint, “white space” is visually pleasing to the reader.  Try inserting a one line paragraph in the middle; it will make your e-mail appear shorter.
2. Personalize the subject line.  A personal subject line will significantly increase your response rates.  This is especially import if the receivers won’t recognize your name or your ministry name.  Your subject line can capture their attention and encourage them to open it.  Questions are usually good, you might try something like; “Can we talk next Wednesday at 3:00pm?”, or “Should we talk about ____?”
3. Use a salutation. To get a response your message should be informal and inviting.  Begin your emails with a warm greeting using the contact’s first name, such as “Hi Fred.”  If you absolutely can’t get their name, you could begin with “Hi, Bill Bender here,” but understand that will lessen the effectiveness.
4. Don’t focus totally on your ministry or service.  E-mails need a personal touch to get noticed.
5. Limit the number of e-mails you send at a time.  If people do respond, they expect a reply to their email in 24 hours or less.  Limit your list of receivers to whatever you can respond quickly to, this tells the receivers that you are a real person, not an automated marketing blast.
6. Customize your message. A small e-mail list also allows you to be personal in your message.  Try to include things you believe they are concerned about, or struggling with.
7. Forget what your English teacher taught you.  Emails are more personal than a business letter and should be written conversationally.  The more relaxed your email is, the better the chances of receiving the response you desire.

Email is one of the most cost effective ways to reach people today.  If we master the technique, our e-mails will be noticed and remembered.

As always, thank you for reading Linked4Ministry.  If you are new here, the best way to receive all the new posts is to subscribe for e-mail updates at the top right.  If you have been following Linked4Ministry and find it helpful, please consider sharing it with other ministry partners that it could benefit.  It’s easy to do by clicking on the following buttons, and it’s OK to click more than one 🙂 !

Blessings,
Bill Bender
Anothen Life Ministries

Are You Using LinkedIn’s Secret Power?

Did you even know LinkedIn had a secret power?  Well, it’s really not a secret, but it’s a power that is woefully unused, largely due to time, but also lack of knowing about the benefits.

The power of LinkedIn is actually using it.  Here are a few simple things that you need to be doing, at least every day or two, to take full advantage of LinkedIn.

The first thing is to actually use LinkedIn.  By use LinkedIn I mean regularly look at it.  If you are not regularly looking at several LinkedIn updates you could miss an opportunity to help your business or ministry expand.  LinkedIn uses what I call the “pull” factor, in lieu of many social media’s “push” factor.  LinkedIn ‘pulls’ you into the site by sending you an e-mail that tells you when someone accepts your invitation to connect and when a new discussion is initiated or updated in each one of your groups, but if that’s all you look at you could be missing several opportunities to expand your connections, and reach.  Here are a few things you should regularly check:

When you log into LinkedIn, you go to your “Home” page where you are notified if you have Messages and/or Invitations, but don’t stop there.  You should also take a minute or two and scroll down through your Network Activity to see what your connections are doing.  You can see who your connections have recently connected to and perhaps recognize an old friend you can connect with, or spot someone you’d like to know and ask your connection to “Introduce” you.  You will see your connections “Status” updates to see new articles they wanted to share, events they posted or attended, projects they are working on, etc.  Sending a short personal note about their status update is a great way to keep up your connection. 

If you want to separate the Activities, click on the words “Network Activity”.  You can now choose from;

• “All Updates” where updates are listed in the left column and your network’s recent connections are in the right column.  
• “Category View” where all the updates are summarized by category
• “Connection View” where updates are summarized by connection
• “My Updates” where all your updates are listed.   

Back on the Home Page, check out the “People You May Know” box at the top right.  LinkedIn suggests people you may know based on your current and previous work experience, education, as well as what appears to me to be a ‘pattern’ of who you continue to connect to, or your network’s connections.  At any rate, it’s worth a quick check to see if you truly know them, or want to pursue getting to know them.  I’ve included a few suggestions later under New Connections.

Again on the Home Page, on the right side, take a look at the “Who’s Viewed My Profile?” section.  This is a little more ‘cryptic’ as you cannot always tell who it was, but it gives you an idea of who you are attracting interest from.  One Note, if you upgrade to a paid account it only gives you more than the basic 5 listings, not more details about who actually looked at your profile, that’s based on each individual Privacy Settings.  My suggestion is to Change what others will see when You view their profile.  The advantage of letting others know exactly who you are when you view their profile is many times they will check you out, and send you an invitation.  You can change what others see by clicking on “Settings” at the top right, then under Privacy Settings, click on “Profile Views” and select the first ‘full details’ selection of who you are.

The next thing to do is join some groups if you haven’t already . . . and get involved in them.  There are LinkedIn Groups on almost every subject, and joining the groups not only gives you excellent information in the discussions, it gives you almost unlimited access to all the members.  If you have a ‘target contact’ you want to get connected to and build a relationship with, look at their profile and see what groups they are in.  Select a group or two that you would benefit from, and join.  Take not of your target contacts participation in discussions.  Start by adding your own input to the discussion.  If your comments are good, you can bet your target will take notice after a time or two.  Once you’ve gotten their attention, you could add a comment in your reply about what they said, or even reply directly to them.  When your communication link is established, asking them to connect should be easy.  You can establish credibility and trust in your group by taking an active participation in the discussions.  Be sure to check the group’s rules (top right of each group’s screen), and post promotional items in the “Promotions” tab, not the discussions tab.  Also note that many groups will remove posts that link the reader out of the group.  They don’t want links that take members to blogs or websites that are really revenue generators.

Now it’s time to add some LinkedIn “Applications”!  You will find the Applications Directory under “More…” in your tool bar at the top right.  If you want some examples, check my profile at http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/billbender .  I’ve added some “SlideShare” Presentations, my “WordPress” blog, “Events”, and “box” files that visitors can download.

Get involved, and add value everywhere you go, and you will be richly rewarded!

As always, thank you for reading Linked4Ministry.  If you are new here, the best way to receive all the new posts is to subscribe for e-mail updates at the top right.  If you have been following Linked4Ministry and find it helpful, please consider sharing it with other ministry partners that it could benefit.  It’s easy to do by clicking on the following buttons, and it’s OK to click more than one 🙂 !

Blessings,
Bill Bender
Anothen Life Ministries