On Email Introductions: Tip#1

By Norah Turnham  -  On 11 Feb, 2014 -  0 comments

There are a lot of tools and resources out there for people who make a lot of email introductions but there are some simple things you can do right from your inbox to make effective and successful connections for the people in your network. This series, which I will be posting weekly, covers my tips and tricks for the best email introductions.

This first tip revolves around something that drives me up the wall when not handled correctly: the subject line! This is the first thing we see when we receive an email introduction and the way you label your email could make or break the introduction.

Create a unique subject line so that your email is easy to identify.

If you use certain webmail hosts your email threads can get looped together depending on how your inbox is set up. That means that any email with the same subject line gets thrown into the same thread, whether those emails are related or not!

I cannot tell you the amount of time I’ve wasted going through a thread containing 50 emails from various people trying to make sure no one slipped through the cracks just because the person who made the introduction used a lazy subject line like “Intro” or “Introduction.” Eventually someone does slip through the cracks or, when we’ve finally connected and I’m filing the emails from our conversation away, I miss one of the emails because it’s mixed in with everyone else’s, which could lead to me losing important information or, when I’m moving too fast, accidentally emailing the person again as if we had never connected.

Something like “Jane, meet Jack,” “Intro: John + Sarah,” or “Dave Black<>Mary Smith” makes your intention clear before your email is even opened and makes it easy to find and file down the road.

Cheers!