When it comes to email, Microsoft Outlook has pretty much got it covered.
Sending, receiving, organising, and archiving messages is easy.
That’s the ‘admin’ side of email. There is much more to it than that, of course.
Every message and piece of communication we send should count. It should have a clear purpose – and be clear in what it says.
Despite all the tools and apps available, email remains a popular way for people in business to talk.
If you are a VA you might also be building an email list. And if you are using your list to stay in touch and market your services, your ability to write good emails is important. Here are 10 tips to improve your results.
Tip #1 – Use a Strong Subject Line
The subject line in your email is like the headline on a sales page. It’s what you use to grab the reader’s attention.
Putting news, an offer or curiosity in your subject line can improve your chances of your email being opened.
Keep the copy short and consider personalising it, using merge tags.
Tip #2 – Have a Clear Purpose
Each email you send should have a purpose behind it. If you’re only going to send one out ‘for the sake of it’ or to meet some kind of target for numbers sent, think again.
What is your email aiming to do? It could be to share some news, inform, entertain or provide an update. It should always be of value to the recipient. If you don’t know why you are about to send an email, don’t send it.
Tip #3 – Get to the Point
Early on in your message, you want to say why the person should keep reading. Tell them. Even if you are writing a longer email, it’s a good idea to give the reader a reason to continue to the end.
People tend to want to know “What’s in it for me?” – so make sure you tell them. And don’t leave it too late (otherwise they might not get to that part before moving onto the next item in their inbox).
Tip #4 – Add Variety to the Mix
If all your emails look and sound ‘the same’, it’s not going to be as interesting for your reader. Try some short messages. Try some longer messages. Test them out. See what your audience likes best.
Remember, the longer your email, the better your writing needs to be – to keep people reading on down the page or screen.
Tip #5 – Be Clear
The most important thing with any message is to be clear. Take a look at your email before you send it. Are you saying what you want to say succinctly?
Is there room for misinterpretation of the information, tone, invitation, request or call to action?
If you’re not sure, ask a trusted friend or colleague to take a look and give you feedback.
Tip #6 – Use Simple Words
It doesn’t matter whether you are writing to a CEO or a team leader. Stick to using simple words in your copy. It makes the message easier to read.
Avoid jargon and clichés. If you are going to use ‘technical’ terms, consider whether the recipient will understand them. If “Yes, easily”, you can keep them in. If not, you may need to explain a little more. Just to be clear.
Tip #7 – Use Shorter Sentences
This helps the reader to get through your mail and to understand what you are saying.
You can also use it to adjust the pacing of your message, especially if it is a longer email or a sales email.
Tip #8 – Use Story
When you share relevant stories, they can help people to know more about you, your values, your principles and the way you do business.
Great stories are memorable and allow the reader to take away what they want from the message. Remember the one about the Tortoise and the Hare?
Tip #9 – Be assertive with the Call to Action
This is for those emails where you require the recipient to do something or would like them to take a specific action. This could be from sending you some data to complete a task, to inviting the reader to book a call with you.
Make it clear what you want people to do. And give them every encouragement to do so. This is not the time to be vague or woolly. Be clear. Be straight. What do they need to do? And by when?
Tip #10 – Double Check BEFORE You hit ‘Send’
Finally, before you hit send just do one thing. Take another look at your email.
Does it say what you want it to say succinctly? Is the message clear? Are there any spelling errors? Have you used simple words and short sentences? Is your request, invitation or call to action clear?
Only when you’re happy with it should you hit ‘Send’.
A conversation in Outlook is where you show the back and forth between email recipients in what is also known as a Thread. I was thinking about what a conversation is and went to the Thesaurus in Word to find out.
To get to the Thesaurus – go to the Review Ribbon and click on Thesaurus in the Proofing Group.
Then enter the word you want to find out about and press enter to search. A list of Synonyms will appear:
Here they are typed up.
Chat
Talk
Discussion
Téte-a-téte
Dialog
Dialogue
Exchange
Banter
Natter
Colloquy
So here is what each of these suggestions means to me.
Chat – well this to me is an informal exchange of general news and views between people
Talk – this to me sounds more one sided, one person talking at another or at an audience, talk being delivered
Discussion – an exchange of views between any number of individuals
Téte-a-téte – an intimate conversation usually between two people
Dialogue – a conversation between people
Exchange – well an exchange of views or conversation
Banter – conversation that is jokey
Natter – a really informal conversation
Colloquy – a more formal discussion between many people at a conference or symposium
Well I have to say that I did learn something from looking this up, I found out the definition of a Colloquy which I was not 100% sure about. I do love learning new things, don’t you?
Now we know what Conversations are – are you using them in Outlook?
What exactly do I mean? Well a conversation is an exchange of views or news back and forth between one or more people. So in the context of email I send Bob an email and Bob replies to me. I then send Bob another email in response to his reply and so on.
Arrange your email in Conversations
Turn Conversations on using the View Ribbon – click Show as Conversations.
Now Show as Conversatoins is enabled, when you click the drop down arrow at the top of the folder you wish to rearrange, you will see Arrange by Date (Show as Conversations) – this puts the emails in Date Order and groups them into a conversation so that you can see all the back and forth in one thread.
Email displayed as Conversation
Note triangle that is expanded here, use this to collapse or expand the conversation view to minimise the list of email in your Inbox.
So now back to my original questions to you – are you using Conversations in Outlook to help keep your Inbox tidy and see the conversation in one place? It is also a time saver as all the emails in one conversation are in one place and easy to find. Just expand or collapse the conversation to see them or hide them.
Leave a comment below and let me know if you are using conversations in Outlook.
.P.S. If you need more information on how to take back control of your Inbox – look at my Microsoft Outlook Email Course. You will be amazed at the amount of content that is covered and just about email!
I don’t know anyone who dislikes a story – being read to, or listening to a story on the radio is a real treat. I know that my children used to love having stories read aloud to them.
Imagine that you are visually challenged and reading your email is proving a tad problematic. You can make the text bigger, magnify everything but it is still a struggle.
Enter Read Aloud!
You can have Microsoft Outlook read your text out loud! This feature was introduced in April/May of 2018 and I thought it was worth repeating again.
Here is a short video to show it in action.
What do you think of this new Read Aloud feature? Will you use it?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
P.S To learn more about Microsoft Outlook, head over to my Microsoft Outlook Email Course with close to 4 hours of Video Tutorials you will be mastering your Inbox in no time!
If you get my Productivity Newsletter, then you will know that I provide tips and how to guides on doing things with Microsoft Office. Recently I have been focused on Microsoft Outlook and have written about using all sorts of tools around meetings. It was natural then to do some research and find out how to hold effective meetings.
The tips in this post are a distillation of several blog posts that I consulted for the best way to have an effective meeting.
One – Meeting Objective
What is the point of the meeting?
Setting a meeting objective will help you to decide if the meeting is in fact necessary and will inform the next decision. See point two.
Two – Invite the right people
I know that this appears to be obvious, but how many times have you attended a meeting that in reality you did not need to be at? It sometimes feels as if the meeting organiser has invited everyone along because they were not sure whether this person or that really needs to be there. This is counterproductive.
It can lead to a waste of time and money. For each person at your one-hour meeting, that is an hour of other productive work that is not getting done. Plus, a person at the meeting who feels that they are wasting their time, may become disruptive and then when they do need to be at a meeting in the future they will decline.
Three – Have an Agenda
Circulate the Agenda well before the meeting. Make it part of the meeting invitation – that way people know exactly what will be covered.
Four – Stick to the Agenda
I know this may seem obvious, but how many times have you been at a meeting that has gone off topic? You sit there thinking – what on earth has this go to do with the Agenda and why am I here, it has nothing to do with me….
Five – Keep to time
Arrive on time – if you are attending. Being on time shows respect to the organiser and all the other people who are there. If you are late it can be interpreted as if you value your own time above everyone else.
End on Time – if you are the organiser or the facilitator of the meeting, keep the flow and make sure to end on time. Bear in mind that those attending may well have other meetings to attend or other deadlines to meet.
Six – Be Prepared
When you call a meeting, it is because there is something or somethings important to be discussed and get done. Do your homework. Make sure you are prepared to host the meeting and if there is information that the attendees need to have access to – so that they can prepare too, make sure that you distribute the information in good time. Anything from two days to two weeks before the meeting.
If there is a lot of work to be done before the meeting by the participants, you may want to remind them a few days beforehand.
Seven – Allow time for creativity
It is one thing to be ruthless about moving the agenda along, however time needs to be made for free-flowing discussion and creativity. Brainstorming, talking around a topic and making sure that everyone is heard.
Eight – Q&A
Make sure that you have time for a Question and Answer session built in to your agenda. People will have questions and possibly need clarification of points agreed.
Nine – Summing up
Make sure that everyone knows what they are doing after the meeting, and when they need to have their part of the work done by. Don’t assume that everyone took detailed notes. Make sure that you have a note of what each person is expected to do post meeting.
Ten- Follow up
Have a system to follow up your meeting. Send out the minutes and keep track of tasks allocated.
Can Microsoft Outlook help with Meetings and tasks?
Microsoft Outlook can help with meeting organisation, if you are inviting several people who work for your organisation, then you can use the Outlook Meeting Scheduler to find the best time for your people.
After you have sent a meeting invite out, you can also use the Tracking element of the meeting in Outlook to keep track of the responses to your meeting request. See who has accepted or declined or has not responded. This will allow you to know exactly who you need to remind.
Use Outlook tasks to allocate and assign tasks to people and to receive updates on their progress.
Sign up for the Productivity Newsletter – in tomorrow’s bulletin I share how to use Outlook Scheduling Assistant to help with meetings and tracking attendees.
Outlook also works with OneNote
Microsoft Outlook also works with OneNote, you can add meetings to a OneNote notebook and take notes right inside your OneNote Notebook. Then email your meeting notes from the OneNote Notebook to all the attendees. Tasks noted during the meeting can be sent directly to your Outlook task folder and then assigned to the correct person.
Microsoft Office really does help with productivity
When you know how to use all the different parts of Microsoft Office and understand how they talk to each other, you really can up your productivity and save loads of time.
Learn More
To learn more about how Microsoft Outlook can help you work more efficiently, sign up for the Microsoft Outlook course waiting list – the new Microsoft Outlook Email course will be released by the end of March 2019 and following on from that the next instalment is all about Calendar People and Tasks.
There are three main reasons in my opinion for moving email out of the Inbox
Overwhelm
Organisation
Inbox Size
Let’s look at each one.
Overwhelm
Microsoft Outlook email arrives into the Inbox and sits there unless you take action and do something about it.
In my long training career when training Outlook in organisations, I would regularly see an Inbox with thousands of emails just sitting there. They had been read, and then left right where they were. No intention of tidying them up, filing them or deleting them.
When you open up Outlook in the morning and see 5000 or more emails in the Inbox, it can feel totally overwhelming.
How do I find the email I need? Do I really need to keep all of these, I must have a clear out soon. All thoughts that go through one’s mind. However, with this many emails to deal with, it becomes totally overwhelming and nothing gets done.
Organisation
An organised person will move their email into folders. Now each person will use folders in a different way and that is fine. So long as it works for you.
Create folders for clients, colleagues, projects, people – the choice is yours. Then as soon as you have dealt with an email, move it to the correct folder and hey presto! The number of emails in the Inbox reduces nicely.
There are several systems out there for staying organised from three to five folder systems. Whichever you choose – if it works for you then it is the right system.
Inbox Size
Lastly Inbox Size. How much storage space do you have in your Inbox – how do you know when you are reaching the limit? Does everything in every folder you create count towards your Inbox quota?
If you work in a large organisation, the IT Team will let you know when you are reaching your limits.
If you are using Office 365 with an Exchange account, you can see how much space you have used by clicking on the File Menu and then looking under Mail Box settings.
With Office 365 comes 50GB of mailbox storage space for your email.
All email in your Inbox whether in the actual Inbox or in a folder that is stored under the Inbox counts towards this storage limit.
How do I take email out of my storage limit?
There are three ways to remove email from your storage quota.
Archive using the Online Archive
With Office 365 comes the ability to switch on the Online Archive feature. This is switched on by the administrator of the account. Once enabled any email that is filed in the Online Archive does not count toward your storage quota.
Archive to a .pst file
Before Office 365 one would need to archive email using Outlook’s Auto Archive settings. This would create a local file which can be saved on your PC or on the server (should you have one).
If the pst file is stored locally though and you lose the laptop or the desktop or it becomes unusable, the archive will be lost. EEK!
With the Online Archive that won’t happen.
Save As
You can also save an email out of Outlook and store it in a folder on your computer or server.
Open the email then click on the File menu and choose save as and then change the file format to Outlook Message Format. You can then save it to any folder of your choice.
Now you can delete the email completely from your Inbox and it will no longer count toward your Inbox Quota.
What are your reasons for moving your Microsoft Outlook Email? Is it one of the ones above or some other reason.
Do comment and let me know.
I am creating an online course for Outlook Email – you can get on the waitlist to find out when it will be released by clicking Here.
Speaking
I have been asked to speak at the Practically Perfect PA Online Summit on April 5! I will be delivering a session on my Top 8 Time Busting Tips – you can register for the summit here and there is a 10% discount when you add the code vspeaker10 at checkout. There is a great line up of speakers and you get access to the recordings as well.
When I am recording a new course, I need to make sure that I am not distracted by all the notifications and sounds that can intrude and cause distractions when Outlook is open on my machine!
Distractions are caused by:
Pop up notifications
Banners
Sounds on the Computer every time an email arrives
Sounds on Windows every time a notification arrives
Floating boxes that face at the bottom of the screen
The little yellow envelope that appears in the system tray and on the Outlook
Any other programs you have open that also give you notifications
Notification sounds on your mobile phone!
Why are they so distracting?
Did you know that each time you leave what you are doing and move your focus to read the new email notification, you can lose up to 20 minutes of productivity?
Firstly, you are in the zone working on a project. A sound or banner pop in and you are distracted. Now that you have been distracted, you follow the little envelope and head over to your Inbox to see what it was. Then you read the email all the while, losing the complete focus you had. Then you go answer the email which means that you are now focused on the content of the email and not your project. Next as you are already in your Inbox, well you may as well see what else is there. Before you know it half an hour has gone by!
Then when you finally get back to the project, you have to get back in the zone.
Frustrating yes?
What is the Solution?
Turn off all those distracting notes, icons, sounds and banners.
When you start to work on a project whatever it may be if it demands your full attention then give it your full attention.
Here are some things to help.
Close down Outlook – yes close it altogether that way you won’t be tempted to peek.
Turn off the sound on your phone – this will stop the notification sounds from disturbing you
Turn your phone off! – not always possible I know but at least put it on silent and set up a rule that allows calls from that important client to get through – you really would not want to miss that one!
Set up your computer so that banners, popups and sounds do not intrude.
To find out how to block out the notification in Outlook get on the wait list for my latest course – all about Outlook. You can sign up for it here.
When you share relevant stories, they can help people to know more about you, your values, your principles and the way you do business.
